Day: December 21, 2018

Tennessee Republican Attorney General Herb Slatery Fights Obamacare, Democrat Predecessor Would Not

Chris Butler

A federal judge in Texas recently ruled Obamacare is constitutionally flawed, and Tennessee Attorney General Herb Slatery, a Republican, played a role, however small, in challenging it. Unlike his predecessor, Democrat Bob Cooper, Slatery fought the law on behalf of the Tennessee residents who want it gone. Cooper wanted nothing to do with challenging Obamacare in court, even though Tennessee is overall a conservative state. As Town Hall reported in 2014, Obamacare’s harsh effects throughout all of Tennessee apparently failed to persuade Cooper to join 27 other state attorneys general in fighting the law. This was one of the early challenges officials in several states filed after former Democratic President Barack Obama signed it into law in 2010. News Channel 5 asked Cooper at the time why he refused to join the other state attorneys general. Cooper said he was trying to save taxpayer money and chose not to fight. “This office determined that Tennessee’s participation in the lawsuit would not have been an appropriate use of limited state resources because participation would have cost money during difficult economic times while providing no additional benefit to the state,” Cooper said at the time. In 2012 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled…

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OFF THE RECORD: Bill Lee’s Anti-Trump Chief of Staff Blake Harris Setting the Personnel Agenda

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President Donald Trump carried 92 of Tennessee’s 95 counties against Hillary Clinton in 2016 with a 61 percent to 35 percent margin. He retains an extraordinarily high approval rating among Tennessee Republicans, polling consistently above 84 percent. Trump’s support for Marsha Blackburn was a critical factor in her 11 point victory gap over Democrat Phil Bredesen in the 2018 Senate race. During his primary campaign for Governor, Bill Lee embraced Donald Trump and even ran a television ad that pointed out that Trump has been “so effective” because he’s a “businessman, not a politician.” Trump’s endorsement of Lee in the general election, along with the endorsement of key in-state Trump supporters like former State Senator Mae Beavers, helped Lee to a 20 plus point margin over Karl Dean.  The 2018 Republican Primary for Governor ended up with Lee prevailing over Diane “Too Swamp” Black and Randy “Too Moderate” Boyd because — like Goldilocks selecting a bed — he was “just right” for Christian conservatives and Trump voters in the state. You might think that Governor-elect Lee would be setting the foundations for his policy agenda by appointing those who were ideologically aligned with Candidate Lee to top positions in his…

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Commentary: Democrat Oversteps on Trump Impeachment Will Stir Populist Uprising

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by Jeffrey A. Rendall   While viewing news coverage of the recent protests in Paris over the French government’s tax hike on fuel it reminded me (a little) of our very own American citizen uprising over the government’s excessive and unpopular taxation policies of the 18th century. Seeing as this is the time of year Americans celebrate Christmas – and are therefore intensely aware of pressures on family budgets – it’s also appropriate to remember the anniversary of the “protest” that started a populist wave, the legendary “Boston Tea Party.” December 16 marked the 245-year anniversary of the “party,” where highly agitated (and probably inebriated) Bostonians disguised as Indians raided East India Company ships at anchor and enthusiastically tossed the tea into the harbor. Tea and salt water don’t mix, so essentially the act of vandalism cost the Mother Country’s merchants tens of thousands of pounds of product. And it got the British government very angry at the Americans. Lord North and parliament imposed martial law on the Bostonians, the colonies rode the slippery slope towards separation and independence and the rest is… history. Whereas the citizens (some might call them anarchists) in Paris were allegedly upset over President Emmanuel Macron’s…

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California Sanctuary Law Allowed Twice Deported Illegal Immigrant to Embark on Murderous ‘Reign of Terror’

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by Grace Carr   A twice-deported illegal immigrant felon allegedly killed a man and injured numerous others Sunday, and authorities are blaming the criminal’s violent actions on California’s sanctuary state law for allowing the violence to occur. Gustavo Garcia, 36, shot a farm worker in Tulare County in California Sunday before stealing $2,000 from an AA Gas and Grub mini mart in Exeter, The Washington Post reported Thursday. Garcia went on to shoot a woman in the parking lot of a Motel 6 in Tulare, spray bullets into a Shell gas station, shoot and kill a man at a second gas station in Visalia, and finally attack his ex-girlfriend’s house, the Post reported. The farm worker and motel occupant are expected to survive, according to the Post. Authorities described Garcia’s 24-hour violent rampage as a “reign of terror,” according to the Post. Garcia stole a truck and drove at speeds exceeding 100 mph in an attempt to evade police following his shooting spree, according to Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux. Garcia collided with multiple vehicles before flying through the car’s windshield. Four people were taken to the hospital with injuries, and one remains in critical condition, according to the Post. Garcia was arrested on Dec.…

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Commentary: The Art of the Veto and How Trump Can Force a Vote on the Wall

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by Robert Romano   There won’t be any vote on wall funding this year or any year at the rate we’re going — because nobody in Congressional leadership is apparently willing to stick it in a bill and simply vote on it. Even to defeat it. Until the end of the year, Republicans are in complete control of the House of Representatives. Under the leadership of House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), however, the only vote on any wall funding that occurred did not happen until the March 2018 omnibus spending bill. And then, it was just the measly $1.6 billion supplement that President Donald Trump had requested — in Feb. 2017 — that was intended to be attached to the FY 2017 spending bill that was still being resolved in the early days of the Trump administration. Instead, it took more than a year to get done. Even now, to date, House Republicans have not even had a show-vote on a messaging bill that McCarthy promised to fully fund the wall — even though such a vote would be practically meaningless. The House has not even sent a spending bill with the wall…

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House Freedom Caucus Opposes Short-Term Spending Bill Over Border Wall

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by Henry Rodgers   North Carolina Republican Rep. Mark Meadows and House Freedom Caucus members will vote “no” on a short-term funding bill that would fund the government until Feb. 8, as funding is set to expire Friday, The Daily Caller News Foundation has learned. “The time to stand up for the American people and fight for wall funding is now. If the president vetoes a [continuing resolution (CR)] without wall funding, the American people and his allies in Congress will back him up. We’ll support him. The time to act is now. That’s why we were elected and it’s time we follow through,” Meadows, chairman of the congressional caucus, told the TheDCNF Thursday. Meadows called out House Speaker Paul Ryan on the House floor Wednesday and said he would not be giving up on the border wall or the American people. “The president many months ago said he wouldn’t sign another funding bill unless we gave him wall funding. So what did this House do? It passed a bill to fund the Department of Defense and passed a short-term CR and said, ‘You know what? We’re going to have that fight, but we’re going to have that fight after the…

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The House of Representatives Approves $5.7 Billion in Spending for ‘The Wall’

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Late Thursday following weeks of political invective and shutdown threats, the House of Representatives passed – by a final vote of 217-185 – a measure that will fund the government through February 8 that included an allocation of over five billion dollars for the construction of a physical barrier along the United States’ southern border. Commonly referred to as “The Wall,” the massive construction project is a key campaign promise President Trump is one step closer in fulfilling. In remarks Thursday afternoon during the signing ceremony for the Farm Bill (the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018), President Trump reiterated his demand to Congress: At this moment, there is a debate over funding border security and the wall, also called — so that I give them a little bit of an out — “steel slats.”  We don’t use the word “wall” necessarily, but it has to be something special to do the job — steel slats. I’ve made my position very clear: Any measure that funds the government must include border security.  It has to.  Not for political purposes but for our country, for the safety of our community. Breitbart News reported: House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) cheered the bill’s…

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Commentary: What Happened in North Carolina is Voter Fraud

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by Jason Snead   More than a month after the November election, the details of an apparent voter fraud scandal orchestrated by a North Carolina Republican operative are still coming to light. A coordinated absentee ballot harvesting ring may have gathered, tampered with, or destroyed hundreds of ballots. The outcome of the House race in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District hangs in the balance, and the state elections board may order a new election. Voters across the country are watching, rightly alarmed at the apparent ease with which some of their fellow citizens were effectively disenfranchised. Amazingly, in the middle of all this, some on the left are more focused on what to call the fraud in the 9th District than on how to stop it from happening in the future. Over the last few days, outlets like Vox, ThinkProgress, and CNN have all published articles telling readers that it is important not to call the North Carolina scandal “voter fraud.” [The liberal Left continue to push their radical agenda against American values. The good news is there is a solution. Find out more >>] No, they say, it must be called “election fraud.” These articles imagine, as Vox puts…

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Paul Ryan Encouraged GOP Congressmen to Campaign Against Trump

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by Molly Prince   Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas revealed Wednesday that Speaker of the House Paul Ryan advised GOP House members to run on a platform against President Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election. “Just a few weeks before the election, we were told by Paul, by our elected leaders that, gee, the only way we can keep the House majority is just all of us start running against the president,” Gohmert told guest host Derek Hunter during an interview on WMAL. “Fortunately, we had enough people one after another on the call that pushed back so hard they backed off of that.” Gohmert explained that Trump is still getting used to the dichotomy between the public and private sector, especially when it comes to handling members who claim to support him politically, yet refuse to further his agenda. “He wants to work with people over here on the Hill, and he’s just not used to, in the private sector, having people that are reputedly on his side conspiring to keep him from getting what he promised,” said Gohmert. “And that’s what we’ve seen.” “In the private sector, Trump knew if somebody that was on his side undermined him, there’d…

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‘Climate Alarmism,’ ‘Propaganda’ Fill US Agency Websites, Report Finds

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by Tim Pearce   Multiple federal agencies are pushing agenda-driven climate science on their websites, according to The Heartland Institute. The Trump administration has taken a public stance supporting fossil fuels and questioning the scientific “consensus” of climate change research. Parts of federal websites should be overhauled or taken down completely to conform to the administration’s stance on climate change and fossil fuel energy production, Heartland says. Trump administration agencies continue to push “climate alarmism” and publish “propaganda” on their websites despite President Donald Trump’s position on climate change and the use of fossil fuels, according to The Heartland Institute. Heartland researchers audited the websites of federal agencies for information that seemed to contradict the public stance of President Donald Trump and his administration’s agenda to expand American energy production, including fossil fuel production. Heartland researchers found numerous examples of federal agencies pushing an anti-fossil fuel narrative, according to sections of a draft report obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation. “Federal executive branch websites are littered with political propaganda instead of objective science,” Heartland senior environment and energy policy fellow James Taylor said in a statement to TheDCNF. “To the extent scientific issues are discussed, they are presented in a…

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AG Nominee Lambasted Mueller Tactics in Private Memo to Rosenstein

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by Kevin Daley   Attorney General nominee William Barr sent a memo to the Department of Justice criticizing special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, particularly those aspects of the probe relating to obstruction of justice in June. The unsolicited document, whose existence was first reported by The Wall Street Journal, argues President Donald Trump’s dismissal of former FBI Director James Comey does not rise to obstruction of justice, since the president was carrying out his constitutional responsibilities. “As I understand it, [Mueller’s] theory is premised on a novel and legally insupportable reading of the law,” Barr wrote. “Moreover, in my view, if credited by the Justice Department, it would have grave consequences far beyond the immediate confines of this case and would do lasting damage to the presidency and to the administration of law within the executive branch.” Barr conceded a sitting president could obstruct justice by destroying evidence or tampering with witnesses, according to the Journal. Still, he insisted that the president cannot commit obstruction of justice when exercising his lawful powers. Elsewhere in the memo, he warned that moving against Trump based on an inventive theory of criminal liability would inflame much of the country and compromise faith in…

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Minnesota DHS Provided Medicaid Benefits to Out-of-State and Incarcerated Individuals, Report Finds

Anthony Gockowski

A new report issued last week by the Minnesota Office of the Legislative Auditor found that the Department of Human Services (DHS) provided Medical Assistance (MA), or Medicaid, benefits to ineligible residents. While the report concluded that the DHS “generally complied” with eligibility requirements, there were numerous instances in which enrollees failed to report “changes in circumstances” that “likely would have affected their eligibility.” For instance, the audit found that “24 enrollees did not timely notify their county agency that they had permanently moved out of state and that MA coverage should have been terminated.” Additionally, DHS failed to “identify” that one enrollee was “later incarcerated,” and paid $6,308 in “medical payments to a managed care organization while this enrollee was incarcerated.” The state of Minnesota paid nearly $1.8 billion for health insurance coverage for an estimated 297,000 enrollees in 2017, but last week’s audit found that 15 percent of recipients were ineligible because they exceeded income limits. “For 15 of 100 sample cases (15 percent), the enrollee’s actual income for calendar year 2017 exceeded their income reported to the county agency and the household income limit set in federal law. Thus, these individuals would not have met income eligibility…

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Ohio Federal Judge Clears Way for Massive Opioid Lawsuit

Andrew Shirley

A massive lawsuit by 1,500 counties, cities, townships, and other communities nationwide, against the opioid industry has been permitted to move forward by a federal judge in Ohio. Over the past two years, local and state governments in Mississippi, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, Nevada, Texas, Florida, North Carolina, North Dakota, Tennessee, Illinois, New York, Washington, and California have all filed separate suits against the various manufacturers, distributors, and sellers comprising the opioid industry. These local governments allege that the “defendants have contributed to the addiction of millions of Americans to these prescription opioids and to the foreseeable result that many of those addicted would turn to street drugs.” In the past year, the majority of these cases were folded into one giant multidistrict litigation that has been consolidated in the Ohio federal courts. The defendants in this case include the three largest drug wholesalers in America: AmerisourceBergen, McKesson, and Cardinal Health. These three entities are commonly referred to as the “Big Three,” accounting for “about 85 percent to 90 percent of all revenues from drug distribution in the United States.” United States District Judge Dan A. Polster of the Northern District of Ohio rejected Wednesday a Motion to Dismiss by the…

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North Carolina Becomes 35th State to Enact Voter ID Law as Legislature Overrides Democrat Governor’s Veto

Anna Marie Bolton

On Wednesday, the North Carolina Republican House followed the Senate in sending a major rebuke to Democrat Governor Roy Cooper by making voter photo identification law. In November voters of the state approved a constitutional amendment requiring identification to vote beginning next year. By vetoing the Republican bill, the Democrat governor was attempting to stall debate on the matter until next year when Republicans will no longer hold a veto-proof majority and the bill would likely be watered down. Republicans blasted the governor for his comments about the bill when he said the “fundamental flaw in the bill is its sinister and cynical origins” suggesting that a bill requiring voters to identify themselves in order to vote “was designed to suppress the rights of minority, poor and elderly voters.” Rep. David Lewis, R-Harnett, chairman of the House Committee on Elections and Ethics Law, said before the vote, My district is full of good, hard-working, well-intentioned people – there is nothing sinister or cynical about them. The governor does not have a problem with this legislature, he has a problem with his citizens. This bill does exactly what the people of this state wanted us to do.” The debate in the…

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Minnesota Gov. Dayton Lists ‘Diversity and Inclusion’ Among Top Accomplishments of His Tenure

Anthony Gockowski

Gov. Mark Dayton (D-MN) and his staff released a list of his “top 25” major accomplishments as governor on Wednesday as he prepares for the end of his eight-year stint in the governor’s mansion. “When Gov. Mark Dayton took office, he promised to build a better Minnesota. Eight years later, Minnesota is doing better—much better than it was before,” a press release from his office states, listing policies such as “education funding” and “free all-day kindergarten” as some of his most proud achievements. Dayton’s staff says that when he first took office, just 54 percent of Minnesota’s children were enrolled in all-day kindergarten, but now “165,000 children have benefited from free, all-day kindergarten.” “And their families have been spared the expense of paying for all-day K out-of-pocket,” the press release states. Dayton also touts the “economic growth” experienced under his administration, which took over when the unemployment rate was at 6.9 percent. Now, however, Dayton’s office notes that unemployment is at a 19-year-low of 2.8 percent and has been “at or below 4 percent for 53 months.” Among Dayton’s other most prized accomplishments are his efforts to promote “diversity and inclusion” throughout the state. As governor, Dayton hired “the first…

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Listen to The Tennessee Star Report Exclusive Interview with Vet Who Has Raised Over $10 Million Using GoFundMe to Help Trump ‘Build the Wall’

Julie Carr

On Thursday’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 and Mike spoke exclusively with Air Force veteran Brian Kolfage, a triple amputee and recipient of the Purple Heart, about his GoFundMe account in which, at the time of the interview (7:15 am central time) had raised over $4 million the four days since its launch to help “build the wall.” As the morning conversation continued, a donor made a contribution in the amount of $10,000 which was then the largest single donation so far. Later on Thursday, an anonymous donor topped that with a $50,000 donation. As of 10 p.m. central Thursday night, contributions had grown to over $10 million. You can see the current status of the GoFundMe account here. You can read the full transcript here: Leahy: We are joined now by Brian Kolfage who has a verified blue check Facebook page as a public figure, he’s a purple heart recipient, a triple amputee veteran.  He put up this page, GoFundMe account just a couple days ago and already has three point one million dollars to…

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