Day: December 20, 2018

President Trump: Mattis Leaving at the End of February

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President Trump said in a duo of tweets Thursday afternoon that Defense Secretary James Mattis will leave the administration early next year. “General Jim Mattis will be retiring, with distinction, at the end of February, after having served my Administration as Secretary of Defense for the past two years,” he tweeted, adding: During Jim’s tenure, tremendous progress has been made, especially with respect to the purchase of new fighting equipment. General Mattis was a great help to me in getting allies and other countries to pay their share of military obligations. A new Secretary of Defense will be named shortly. I greatly thank Jim for his service! ….equipment. General Mattis was a great help to me in getting allies and other countries to pay their share of military obligations. A new Secretary of Defense will be named shortly. I greatly thank Jim for his service! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 20, 2018 The president’s announcement comes on the heels of his decision to withdraw US troops from Syria, fulfilling a long-standing campaign promise. THIS IS A DEVELOPING STORY…        

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EXCLUSIVE: Sen. Lamar Alexander Tells The Tennessee Star Report He Believes ‘Right Now . . . Nancy Pelosi Doesn’t Have the Votes to Be Elected Speaker’

Julie Carr

On Wednesday’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 – Steve Gill and Michael Patrick Leahy spoke with Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) about his decision not to run for re-election in 2020, who he thinks may run to succeed him, Nancy Pelosi’s chance of securing the needed votes to become Speaker of the House, and whether he would support the allocation of military construction funds to build the border wall. When asked about Pelosi’s chances of becoming Speaker, Alexander said, “I think the problem right now is that Nancy Pelosi doesn’t have the votes to be elected Speaker.” Alexander added he thinks that she is not willing to make any agreement until after she is elected. You can read the full transcript here: Gill: And Senator Lamar Alexander a good friend of the show and long time friend of the Gill family on our Newsmakers line to tell us a little bit about his decision and what’s next and, Lamar good to have you with us. Alexander: Good morning Steve, how are you today? Gill: I’m good. I have to…

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Randy Boyd Says He Will Not Run For Lamar Alexander’s Senate Seat, Citing Two Year Commitment to UT

Jason M. Reynolds

Former gubernatorial candidate Randy Boyd will not run for retiring U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander’s seat because he is serving as interim president of the University of Tennessee system for a two-year period, the Chattanooga Times Free Press said Tuesday. Boyd finished in second place to Gov.-elect Bill Lee in the August Republican primary after spending an estimated $20 million on his campaign. Had he chosen to run for the U.S. Senate in 2020 to succeed Alexander, he would have been a first tier candidate, despite his primary loss. According to the Times Free Press: “It just seems so far removed from the state of Tennessee, I couldn’t see myself in Washington, D.C., arguing about things and not getting as in depth,” he said. Having only 24 months or less to tackle his goals adds to that sense of urgency, he said. Alexander (R-TN) on Monday said he would not run for a fourth term in 2020. Tennessee Star Political Editor Steve Gill said, “Lamar just gave political consultants and media buyers an early Christmas gift as he just kick-started the 2020 campaign for his open Senate seat.” The University of Tennessee Board of Trustees on Sept. 25 appointed Boyd as…

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Commentary: How Nike Transformed the University Of Oregon

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by George Leef   While money is not the root of all evil, it is undeniably responsible for the transformation of the University of Oregon (UO). It changed from a typical state flagship where athletics were a nice diversion for some students and alums into a sports powerhouse where the quest for glory in football and basketball dominates the school. The person directly responsible for that is Phil Knight, the founder of the athletic shoe and apparel giant Nike.  At a time when the university’s president was desperately looking for outside funding for the school, Knight, an Oregon alum and huge athletics booster, was on hand to help with funds for projects he liked. Is it a bad thing for an alum to give money? In his recent book University of Nike, author Joshua Hunt shows how Oregon became so hooked on money from Knight that it has allowed athletics to badly distort its priorities. The university’s success on the gridiron and court was crucial to Nike’s business strategy of selling not just shoes, but an entire “dream” package for Americans who were caught up in football and basketball. Once the school started taking Nike money, it simply couldn’t stop.…

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Sumner County District Attorney General Will Not Prosecute Alleged Violations of State Election Laws Involving a Political Action Committee and a School Employee

Laura Baigert

Sumner County District Attorney General Ray Whitley has said he will not press charges in an instance of alleged campaign law violations involving mailers sent during the May 2018 primaries that were funded by a political action committee and arranged by a Sumner County school employee, even though he says state laws appear to have been violated, according to a report by The Gallatin News. The May 1, 2018, county primaries in Sumner County came with a number of unusual situations including the invocation of the “Anti-Skullduggery Act of 1991,” intimidation tactics against first-time conservative Republicans candidates and challenges to candidates’ bona fide status as a Republican. Also associated with the May primaries, there were several mail pieces opposing specific candidates that, confusingly, stated “Paid for by Sumner GOP,” which of course, is the nickname for the Republican Party of Sumner County. While Sumner GOP is indicated as the “short name” of political action committee (PAC) Sumner County Government of the People on its campaign financial disclosure statements, the Sumner County Republican Party didn’t appreciate the intentional deception. A Republican Party of Sumner County Facebook page post of April 27 admonished the PAC, “Once again, we feel it is necessary…

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Judson Phillips Commentary: It is Time for a Conservative Convention in Tennessee

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by Judson Phillips   The announcement by Senator Lamar Alexander, that he will not seek reelection in 2020, has thrown open the doors for conservatives to change the face of Tennessee politics. In 2019, the first installment of that change will happen. Marsha Blackburn will replace Bob Corker in the Senate.  That can only be described as a tremendous improvement. Bill Lee will replace Bill Haslam as governor. While the jury is still out on Governor-elect Lee, by default he has to be an improvement over Governor Haslam. Rumors have long swept Nashville about Governor Haslam’s interest in a Senate seat.  He would be a disaster for conservative and for Tennessee. He must be stopped. But how? The cards are stacked against conservatives.  Governor Haslam is a billionaire who can outspend almost any potential opponent.  In addition, Tennessee is not a run off state. Whoever wins the most votes, even if it is only a plurality, wins the races.  Conservatives well remember the 2006 election where conservatives Van Hillary and Ed Bryant fought it out with Bob Corker.  Corker won with the conservative base split. We cannot allow the conservative base to be split again. Conservatives must unite in a…

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White House Says US Will Start Withdrawing Troops From Syria

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by Wayne Lee   The White House said Wednesday the United States has begun withdrawing troops from Syria, shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted the U.S. has defeated the Islamic State terror group there. “We have started returning United States troops home as we transition to the next phase of this campaign,” White House spokesperson Sarah Sanders said in a statement. She added the defeat of ISIS does not mean the military campaign by coalition forces is ending in Syria. “The United States and our allies stand ready to re-engage at all levels to defend American interests whenever necessary, and we will continue to work together to deny radical Islamist terrorists territory, funding, support, and any means of infiltrating our borders,” Sanders said. Later on Wednesday, Pentagon spokesperson Dana White said in a statement that “the coalition has liberated ISIS-held territory, but the campaign against ISIS is not over.” ISIS an acronym for the Islamic State terror group. “We will continue working with our partners and allies to defeat ISIS wherever it operates,” she said, giving no details as to a timeline, noting “force protection and operational security reasons.” Just last week, U.S. special presidential envoy for the global…

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IHOP Boycotts Tucker Carlson But Not Saudi Arabia

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by Peter Hasson   Breakfast chain IHOP cited its company “values” to justify boycotting Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s show, even as the company profits from its businesses in Saudi Arabia, a notorious violator of human rights. Saudi Arabia’s repeated human rights violations include “unlawful killings,” “official gender discrimination against women” and “criminalization of same sex sexual activity,” according to the U.S. State Department. The State Department also notes that the forced labor of immigrant workers is a significant human rights issue in Saudi Arabia. Left-wing activists pressured advertisers to boycott Carlson’s show after he said liberals believe America has a “moral obligation to admit the world’s poor … even if it makes our own country poorer and dirtier and more divided.” Carlson, a co-founder of The Daily Caller News Foundation, made the comment in reference to migrant caravans making their way through Mexico. Left-wing activists with ThinkProgress and Media Matters immediately launched a campaign to pressure Carlson’s advertisers to abandon his show — a tactic activists have used against other Fox News hosts, including Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity. A spokeswoman for IHOP told HuffPost on Tuesday that the pancake chain stands for “welcoming folks from all backgrounds and beliefs into our restaurants and continually…

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Commentary: Democrats’ Disgusting Hypocrisy on the Wall and Border Security

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After meeting with President Trump to try to resolve the details of the final spending bill of the 115th Congress, soon-to-be Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi of California stated, “Democrats will stand fast against the immoral, ineffective border wall.” Likewise, Democratic Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer of New York threatened to shut down the government if funding for a border wall is part of the legislative package. But back in 2006, 80 U.S. Senators, including Senator Schumer himself, along with Senators Obama, Biden, Clinton, Bill Nelson, Debbie Stabenow, and many others supported a bill that authorized 700 miles of fencing on our southern border. In the House, 64 Democrats also voted for the 700 miles of border fencing. Hillary Clinton, who was critical of President Trump’s plan during the 2016 presidential campaign, also supported fencing along the border and bragged as recently as November 2015 about her previous votes as a senator on the issue. At a campaign event in New Hampshire, a woman asked Clinton about securing the border from illegal immigrants, Clinton said: “Well, look I voted numerous times when I was a Senator to spend money to build a barrier to try to prevent illegal immigrants from coming in…

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TNReady Problems Documented in Full Detail in New Audit

Chris Butler

The TNReady online student assessment tests had login delays, slow servers, and software bugs, according to an audit Tennessee Comptrollers released Wednesday. As reported, earlier this year Republican Gov. Bill Haslam said TNReady “has had several hiccups” and that criticism of it “was earned.” Auditors, however, went into more detail in their report. “The first signs of trouble began on April 16, 2018 and continued through the end of the month,” auditors said in a press release. “Auditors determined that many of these issues occurred primarily because of Questar Assessment, Inc’s performance and updates to the student assessment system. Auditors also found the Department of Education’s oversight of test administration fell short of expectations.” The performance audit’s nine findings include five issues surrounding TNReady. These findings include: • The department’s lack of sufficient, detailed information on its Work Plan with Questar rendered it less effective as a monitoring tool to ensure Questar met all deadlines. • Questar’s decision to make an unauthorized change to text-to-speech software without formally notifying the department. This change contributed to the online testing disruptions. • Questar’s failure to sufficiently staff customer support, resulting in lengthy call wait times and high rates of abandoned calls. •…

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Elite Universities Hide Information on Funding From Ultraconservative Nation of Qatar

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by Luke Rosiak   The nation of Qatar, a Sharia-law monarchy that has been accused of trying to influence other countries’ governments, gave $1 billion to elite American universities since 2011, according to Department of Education data. Some universities have refused to discuss where strings are attached to that money. The Qatar Foundation, for example, filed a lawsuit against the Texas attorney general Oct. 12 to hide information about the $225 million Qatar has awarded to Texas A&M University since 2011. The Qatar Foundation hired the politically connected powerhouse law firm Squire Patton Boggs for the suit, which was filed in response to a researcher’s public information request regarding the foreign funding. The biggest recipient of Qatar’s educational funding, Georgetown University, repeatedly ignored requests from The Daily Caller News Foundation for basic information about the funding and whether it implicates academic independence. Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have accused Qatar of meddling in other nations’ internal affairs as well as funding terrorism. Qatar also wields influence through its media group, Al Jazeera. Top Foreign Funders of U.S. Universities, 2011-2016 (Source: Department of Education) Country Amount Qatar $1,024,065,043 England $761,586,394 Saudi Arabia $613,608,797 China $426,526,085 Canada $402,535,603 Hong Kong $394,446,859 For a nation…

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Texas City Featured in Al Gore’s ‘Inconvenient Sequel’ Lost Millions in its Green Energy Gamble

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by Michael Bastasch   Former Vice President Al Gore hailed the city of Georgetown, Texas, for powering itself with only solar and wind energy, but now the city is losing millions on its green energy gamble. Georgetown’s bet against fossil fuel prices cost the city-owned utility nearly $7 million this year, and prompted officials to look for a way out of their long-term contracts for solar and wind energy. “It’s costing them big time,” vice president of research at the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), Bill Peacock, told The Daily Caller News Foundation in an interview. “This doesn’t appear to be the first time they’ve lost money, just the first time it was big enough to have to go public with it.” Georgetown made national news after being featured in Gore’s film “An Inconvenient Sequel,” which was released in 2017. The film followed-up on Gore’s inaccurate 2006 film”An Inconvenient Truth.” “I think Georgetown is already a trailblazer,” Gore said during his 2016 visit to learn about Georgetown’s plan to get 100 percent of their energy from wind and solar power. “And one thing that Georgetown demonstrates to other places that are just beginning to think about it is that the power supply is…

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Elizabeth Warren Introduces Legislation to Create a Government-Run Pharmaceutical Manufacturer

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by Molly Prince   Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren introduced legislation on Tuesday that would establish a government-run pharmaceutical manufacturer to effectively compete with the private market. The Affordable Drug Manufacturing Act seeks to address the increasing prices of prescription drugs by injecting competition into the marketplace, consequently lowering the cost of mass-produced generic drugs. The bill would create the Office of Drug Manufacturing, which would be housed within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Warren said that adding the agency would increase competition. “In market after market, competition is dying as a handful of giant companies spend millions to rig the rules, insulate themselves from accountability, and line their pockets at the expense of American families,” Warren said in a statement. “The solution here is not to replace markets, but to fix them.” According to the bill, the Office of Drug Manufacturing would be tasked with producing drugs in cases where the market has been deemed to have failed. For example, in addition to requiring the agency to produce generic insulin within one year of authorization, it will be permitted to manufacture any prescription drug that the government has licensed. Moreover, the office can manufacture generic drugs if: No company…

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U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado Says He Is Thinking About Presidential Bid

Jason M. Reynolds

U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., said he is thinking about a presidential bid in 2020. Bennet made the statement Tuesday to Yahoo News podcast “The Long Game,” the site said, which added: Bennet has reportedly been talking to staff in Iowa ahead of the first-in-the-nation caucus there and would join the enormous field of Democrats likely to seek the nomination in 2020, which is more than 30 names long. Bennet, 54, carries himself in a low-key manner but has impressive credentials, and has been considered a rising Democratic star. Former President Obama mentioned him among a handful of young Democrats he believed could be national stars, along with Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., and South Bend, Ind.,  Mayor Pete Buttigieg. Denver CBS4 said on Nov. 30 that Bennet was interested in running for president. “I think that we need to figure out as a country what direction we’re heading in. I think we haven’t been heading in the right direction and I think we need to make sure that we have leadership in this country that’s the kind-of leadership that’s actually going to address the problems that we need to confront as a country. I don’t know…

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Ohio Sheriff Under Investigation for Stealing Drug Arrest Money

Andrew Shirley

A Pike County Sheriff has been accused of stealing thousands of dollars, seized in various drug arrests throughout the county, and using the funds to fuel his “compulsive” gambling problem. The investigation, currently underway, stems from an anonymous complaint filed against Sheriff Charles Reader on November 9. The complaint (copied below) details that the sheriff was able to steal the money by taking the funds from an office safe that only he had access to. He was able to do so because the safe is kept inside his office and only he has access to it. The complaint notes that he “never has any money” and gambles compulsively. The funds in question were seized in local drug arrests made within Park County. He is also accused of taking cars out of the local impound lot and giving them to his daughter for her personal use, and demonstrating behavior unbecoming of an officer. The complaint alleges that he has also borrowed “large sums of money” from two of his deputies after gambling away his own, and owes a local car dealer more than $20,000. “[Sheriff] Reader just does whatever he wants and no one ever calls him on it,” the complaint states,…

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SHOCK CLAIM: Minnesota DHS Whistleblower Says Politicians Received Kickbacks in Childcare Fraud

Anthony Gockowski

Minnesota lawmakers are pushing for answers on the state’s allegedly rampant childcare fraud, but officials within the Department of Human Services seem unwilling to provide any. The story was first exposed in May by investigative reporters with Fox 9, who found that up to $100 million in suitcases left MSP bound for the Middle East. Experts suspect that some of the money is being transferred through Hawalas, the unofficial banking systems of some third-world countries, a share of which is generally demanded by Al-Shabab. Fox 9 found that daycare centers across Minnesota would sign low-income families up for services and bill the state for a full day of care. But in many cases, the children would never show up. Video surveillance obtained by Fox 9 suggests that families in on the scam would even receive shares of the profit. Scott Stillman, a former investigator who spent eight years with the state’s digital forensics lab, was directly involved with the state’s investigation of fraud in daycare centers. He later blew the whistle on Minnesota’s Department of Human Services (DHS), and during a Tuesday hearing at the State Capitol said the case has “the potential to be Minnesota’s Watergate.” “The door is…

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Gun Rights Bill Kasich Vetoed is Law in Every Other State

Anthony Gockowski

Gov. John Kasich (R-OH) vetoed the Ohio General Assembly’s gun-rights legislation Wednesday, even though the bill was removed of most of its substantial provisions before passage. As The Ohio Star reported last week, House Bill 228 was stripped of its “stand your ground” measure, which would free gun owners from abiding by a “duty to retreat” law that requires them to stand down in life threatening situations. After it was removed, the Ohio Gun Owners organization said it was “looking at this thing as a big ‘nothing burger’ now.” The bill did, however, still include a provision that would shift the burden of proof from defendants to the prosecution in self-defense cases—the current law in all 49 other states. But Kasich was upset that the bill didn’t include a “red flag” law, which allows the government to seize guns from people who are mentally ill or are considered a danger to others. “We can’t get it done over there. This really infuriates me,” he said this week, according to The Columbus Dispatch. “Why would I sign a bill that gives more power to gun advocates?” “For the first time in my lifetime, the possibility of somebody coming through that door…

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Vet Who Has Raised $1.5 Million for Border Wall Using GoFundMe Will Be Guest on Tennessee Star Report Today

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Florida veteran Brian Kolfage will be a guest on The Tennessee Star Report Thursday at 7:15 a.m. to discuss the trending fundraiser he launched to support President Donald Trump’s border wall. The GoFundMe, which went live Sunday, has already raised $1.5 million in just over two full days. Kolfage is a retired U.S. Air Force member and veteran of the Iraq war, which cost him three of his limbs. “As a veteran who has given so much, 3 limbs, I feel deeply invested to this nation to ensure future generations have everything we have today,” Kolfage said. “Too many Americans have been murdered by illegal aliens and too many illegals are taking advantage of the United States taxpayers with no means of ever contributing to our society.” At the time of publication, his GoFundMe had raised $1,538,708 by 25,992 donors. Kolfage said his team has contacted the Trump administration to “secure a point of contact where all funds will go upon completion.” He added that he’s working with a law firm to draft a legal document that will ensure the funds can only be used for a wall itself, and nothing else. “If we don’t reach our goal or come…

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