Day: December 26, 2018

Audit: Claiborne County Principal Abused Employees for Personal Gain

Chris Butler

A high school principal in Claiborne County abused his position and had school maintenance employees do a seemingly endless list of personal errands for him, according to a new audit. Those personal errands even included the principal making those employees travel out of state, the audit said. This happened at Claiborne High School in New Tazewell, according to the audit. Members of the Tennessee Comptroller’s Office said they began investigating after school officials discovered and reported possible employee misconduct, missing funds, and operational deficiencies. Among other things, the principal, who has since resigned, instructed a maintenance employee to drive his personal truck during work hours to Middlesboro, KY. for repairs, auditors wrote. “The maintenance employee stated he left the school during his lunch period and drove the truck to Middlesboro, where he waited several hours at the dealership before the repairs were completed,” according to the audit. The principal, auditors wrote, also used those employees to do the following, all at taxpayer expense: • Haul cattle the principal owned to the University of Tennessee at Knoxville on three separate occasions. • Burn brush on the principal’s farm during work hours. One maintenance employee worked two hours on the farm before…

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Commentary: Our Globalist Congress Cares More About Securing Syria Than Securing Our Own Southern Border

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by Robert Romano   Congress apparently cares more about securing Syria than securing the U.S. southern border by building the wall. That’s about all that can be taken away from some of the Congressional outcry against President Donald Trump who has announced the U.S. will be withdrawing troops from Syria — something Congress never authorized in the first place. Trump in a tweet stated that U.S. objectives in Syria have been met: “We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency.” In another tweet, Trump warned that if Islamic State returned, they’ll get hit: “I am building by far the most powerful military in the world. ISIS hits us they are doomed!” We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 19, 2018 ….Russia, Iran, Syria & many others are not happy about the U.S. leaving, despite what the Fake News says, because now they will have to fight ISIS and others, who they hate, without us. I am building by far the most powerful military in the world. ISIS hits us they are doomed! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)…

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Commentary: C.S. Lewis Saw Government as a Poor Substitute for God

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by Lawrence W. Reed   That means it contains all the flaws and foibles of mortals so a free people must confine it, restrain it, and keep a wary eye on it. “Friendship,” wrote C. S. Lewis in a December 1935 letter, “is the greatest of worldly goods. Certainly to me it is the chief happiness of life. If I had to give a piece of advice to a young man about a place to live, I think I should say, sacrifice almost everything to live where you can be near your friends.” Clive Staples Lewis (1898-1963) was just the sort of person I would give an arm to have as a friend across the street. I can only imagine the thrill of listening to him for hours on end. This distinguished scholar and thinker was, of course, a prolific author of works in Christian apologetics and of the seven-part children’s fantasy, The Chronicles of Narnia (which have sold more than 100 million copies and have been adapted into three major motion pictures). While teaching literature first at Oxford and then at Cambridge, he cranked out more than a score of books, from the dense but highly regarded Mere Christianity…

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US Judge Orders North Korea to Pay $500M in Student’s Death

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A federal judge on Monday ordered North Korea to pay more than $500 million in a wrongful death suit filed by the parents of Otto Warmbier, an American college student who died shortly after being released from that country. U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell harshly condemned North Korea for “barbaric mistreatment” of Warmbier in agreeing with his family that the isolated nation should be held liable for his death last year. She awarded punitive damages and payments covering medical expenses, economic loss and pain and suffering to Fred and Cindy Warmbier, who alleged that their son had been held hostage and tortured. Warmbier was a University of Virginia student who was visiting North Korea with a tour group when he was arrested and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in March 2016 on suspicion of stealing a propaganda poster. He died in June 2017, shortly after he returned to the U.S. in a coma and showing apparent signs of torture while in custody. In holding the North Korean government liable, Howell accused the government of seizing Warmbier for “use as a pawn in that totalitarian state’s global shenanigans and face-off with the United States.” “Before Otto traveled with a…

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President Trump Tells Reporters the Government Will Stay Shut Down Unless Wall is Built

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by Henry Rodgers   President Donald Trump said the federal government will remain shut down unless there is an agreement on some type of border wall or fence. “I can’t tell you when the government is going to reopen … [Not until] we have a wall, a fence, whatever they’d like to call it. I’ll call it whatever they want. But it’s all the same thing. It’s a barrier from people pouring into our country,” Trump said when talking to reporters on Christmas Day. Trump’s comments come as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Republicans need to “abandon” border wall funding if they want the government to reopen, just less than 24 hours into the partial shutdown. Trump has not budged on the issue, despite Schumer’s comments, adding that it’s a barrier from dangers like drug smuggling. “It’s a barrier from drugs. There is a problem in this world today called human trafficking … We are not going to let that take place. We are working so hard to catch these traffickers. They are bad people. We can’t do it without a barrier, we can’t do it without a wall,” Trump continued. Incoming acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney warned it is “very possible” the partial…

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Post Office Named for Slain Soldier Capt. Humayun Khan, Whose Father Famously Spoke at the 2016 DNC Convention

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by Jason Hopkins   President Donald Trump signed a bill that names a post office after Capt. Humayun Khan, a Muslim soldier who was killed in 2004 while serving in Iraq. The law changes the name of a U.S. Postal Service facility in Charlottesville, Virginia, to the Captain Humayun Khan Post Office. Before it landed on Trump’s desk, the bill enjoyed widespread support from both parties. First introduced by Virginia Republican Rep. Tom Garrett, it received unanimous consent in both chambers. Virginia Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, both Democrats, praised the law. “With the dedication of this post office, we’re showing the Khan family that we’re forever grateful for his service and sacrifice for our country,” the two senators said in a joint statement. Humayan, a 27-year-old U.S. Army officer at the time, was killed June 8, 2004, when a vehicle containing explosives drove into his compound. He was posthumously awarded a Purple Heart and Bronze Star. Twelve years later, Humayun became a household name when his parents, Khizr and Ghazala Khan, were keynote speakers at the 2016 Democratic National Convention. His father teared into then-candidate Trump for his comments about Muslims, and accused the Republican presidential nominee of “sacrificing nothing and no one.”…

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Illinois Congressman Introduces Bill Preventing Paul Ryan From Using The Gym During Government Shutdown

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by Molly Prince   Democratic Rep. Bill Foster of Illinois introduced legislation that would prevent Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and other lawmakers from having access to the congressional fitness center during the government shutdown. “I introduced a bill to close the Congressional gym during a government shutdown,” Foster tweeted Sunday. “[Speaker Ryan] continues to use it during the #TrumpShowdown as federal workers face uncertainty over the holidays. The only task we have right now is ending the #TrumpShutdown.” I introduced a bill to close the Congressional gym during a government shutdown. @SpeakerRyan continues to use it during the #TrumpShutdown as federal workers face uncertainty over the holidays. The only task we have right now is ending the #TrumpShutdown. https://t.co/kB5k7SFCeD — Congressman Bill Foster (@RepBillFoster) December 23, 2018 While the fitness center is available to all members of Congress, the proposed legislation, known as the Shutdown Prioritization Act, takes aim at Ryan, banning him and other members from using any of the amenities including the gym, sauna and steam room. Ryan is a noted gym enthusiast. He was previously a fitness trainer and leads an intense P90X workout class when Congress is in session. “Republican leadership continues to deem the Congressional spa used…

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Commentary: The Arrest of Huawei Executive Meng Wanzhou Helps Negotiations with China

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by Steven W. Mosher   Wall Street is worried that the arrest of Huawei Vice Chairman Meng Wanzhou will put President Trump’s ongoing trade negotiations with China on ice. They fear that China may retreat from its G-20 promises, or perhaps even call off the negotiations altogether. Some have suggested that U.S. tech executives avoid traveling to China, fearing revenge arrests. As someone who has followed elite politics in Communist China for 40 years, I disagree. In fact, I think that Meng’s arrest may actually help move the negotiations along. China’s leaders see her arrest as a deliberate provocation, intended to provoke them into the kinds of overreactions that would blow up the trade negotiations. They view it, in other words, as a strategic deception. Anyone who has read their Sun-Tzu knows that deception is the primary category—the default position, if you will—of Chinese strategic thought. And the ancient strategist’s famous dictum, “All warfare is deception,” obviously applies to trade wars as well. China knows that the president’s advisors are divided between the globalists, who hope for a win-win agreement on trade, and the nationalists, who want to disengage America’s economy from China’s. They fear that the nationalists have arranged…

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When it Comes to Earthquakes, Tennessee Has Big Disadvantages Versus California

Chris Butler

A large-magnitude earthquake in the central part of the United States would jolt Tennessee and do far more damage here than another similar-sized quake out west could do to California, a Memphis geologist said. That’s because Tennessee and California have different type terrains and that makes all the difference, said Gary Patterson with the Memphis-based Center for Earthquake Research and Information. “If you take the same magnitude earthquake in the central United States in Tennessee versus California then the one in Tennessee will be felt over a five to 20 times larger area. You get more bang for your buck,” Patterson said. “The deep geology here is much different. We are talking 10 to 20 miles deep here. Compared to California, the deep geology here we have is hard, cold dense rocks that transmit seismic energy and vibrations very efficiently. The vibrations go out over huge areas. In California the deep rocks are relatively hot and shattered. The seismic energy dissipates quicker.” People as far away as Dallas, Texas and Tampa, Florida, for instance, felt a recent 4.4 magnitude quake that originated in Decatur, Tennessee Patterson told The Tennessee Star. “The Virginia earthquake that damaged the Washington Monument several years…

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Commentary: Millions of Americans Would Be Hurt By Bernie Sanders’ War on Walmart

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by Amanda Snell   Sen. Bernie Sanders is back again, with yet another attempt to indirectly mandate the $15 an hour minimum wage. It’s called the Stop WALMART Act, or Stop Welfare for Any Large Monopoly Amassing Revenue from Taxpayers Act. It would affect large (500-plus employees) companies, and among other things would prohibit them from buying back stock unless they pay employees at least $15 an hour. [For a discussion of why big companies sometimes buy back their own stock click here] Taking to Twitter, Sanders, I-Vt., attacked the Walton family specifically. [The liberal Left continue to push their radical agenda against American values. The good news is there is a solution.] I say to the Walton family of Walmart: The American people are sick and tired of subsidizing your greed. Get off of welfare and pay your workers a living wage. pic.twitter.com/VxgIxQEON8 — Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) November 16, 2018 Walmart is an obvious target for the democratic socialist: The company’s total revenue in 2018 was a cool $500 billion, and it employs more than 1.5 million people in the U.S. alone. Socialists like Sanders are eager to portray big corporations as the epitome of capitalism’s evil, but in…

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‘Justice’ is Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year

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Racial justice. Obstruction of justice. Social justice. The Justice Department. Merriam-Webster has chosen “justice” as its 2018 word of the year, driven by the churning news cycle over months and months. The word follows “toxic,” picked by Oxford Dictionaries, and “misinformation,” plucked by Dictonary.com. Peter Sokolowski, Merriam-Webster’s editor at large, told The Associated Press ahead of Monday’s announcement that “justice” consistently bubbled into the top 20 or 30 lookups on the company’s website, spiking at times due to specific events but also skating close to the surface for much of the year. While it’s one of those common words people likely know how to spell and use correctly in a sentence, Sokolowski pointed to other reasons that drive search traffic. Among them is an attempt to focus a train of thought around a philosophical problem, or to seek aspirational motivation. Such well-known words are often among the most looked up every year, including those that are slightly abstract, including “love,” he said. The designation for “justice” came soon after President Trump’s one-time fixer, Michael Cohen, was sentenced to three years in prison for crimes that included arranging the payment of hush money to conceal his boss’ alleged sexual affairs. He…

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Commentary: The Neverending, Mysterious Saga of Michael Flynn

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by Victor Davis Hanson   Certainly, no one should defend a top-ranking federal employee’s lying to federal investigators or to his superiors in the Trump Administration, if that is what former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn did, as evidenced by his own confession. Note if Flynn lied to President Trump or Vice President Mike Pence about details of his private conversations, then that is unethical and understandably should be grounds for dismissal. The distinction, however, is whether Flynn deserved to be fired or to be in jail. What put Flynn in legal jeopardy were the general’s statements to FBI investigators that purportedly were false, and allegedly given deliberately to mislead two federal investigators. I express doubt here only because of media reports and leaks that Special Counsel Robert Mueller later either pressured Flynn for a confession, by strategies of financial exhaustion or leveraged him by threats to indict his son, or both. Without that pressure, one wonders how Flynn might have explained his earlier alleged inconsistencies in recounting a private off the record conversation with a foreign diplomatic official to two FBI officials. That is, had he had adequate legal resources or not faced prosecutorial threats to indict his son,…

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Jesus Robbed From Nativity Scenes Across Minnesota

Anthony Gockowski

Churches and communities across Minnesota are beginning to install security systems to prevent thieves from stealing Jesus and Mary from their Nativity scenes. The New York Times reported Sunday that Christians across the nation now have to use “bolts, cameras, and tethers” to combat the sad trend of Nativity-scene crimes. In that article, three Minnesota towns were highlighted that have seen repeat offenders. “This year, thieves have raided Nativity scenes in Tennessee, West Virginia, Minnesota, and plenty of other places, and made off with Jesus figurines,” The Times reports. In Alexandria, for instance, a baby Jesus was robbed from a creche outside a local bed-and-breakfast, whose owners told Echo Press about the incident. “At first we were very disheartened but in keeping with this joyous season of love and generosity, we decided not to despair,” said Rose and David Gibson, owners of Cedar Rose Inn. “Evidently the person/persons responsible needs Jesus in their lives, as do all Christians.” In St. Cloud, meanwhile, a Nativity set near the local fire station lost its Jesus figurine to thieves. The Star Tribune reports that the statue was part of a historic set purchased by local schoolchildren in the 1940’s. Last year, St. Joseph’s Catholic Church had its…

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Ohio State House Battle for Speaker Continues Amid Veto-Override Effort

Andrew Shirley

As early as Thursday, December 27th, Ohio House Republicans may vote to elect a new speaker as well as a new GOP caucus dean, following a dramatic schism from within the House leadership. Normally, following an election, the GOP caucus dean calls for an informal meeting, a new speaker is voted on, and the leadership selection is finalized. However, GOP caucus dean Jim Butler (R-Oakwood) has declined to set a date. On November 29th, he stated “There is growing demand among the caucus to hold a leadership vote. We are going to have a vote.” Since then he has made no public attempt to schedule or organize said vote. From December 19th to 21st, outgoing Ohio Governor John Kasich vetoed three conservative-backed bills; A self-defense gun bill, a pay raise for elected officials, and a pro-life bill that would ban abortions after a heartbeat is detected. Kasich did pass several other bills, including a ban on one of the most common second-trimester abortion procedures. Many GOP lawmakers are hoping they can overturn the vetoes during the December 27th meeting, in addition to finalizing their leadership. However, a potential speaker would have to earn 50 of the 61 GOP caucus member votes. Many believe the…

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Bob Corker Reportedly Disparages Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter

Chris Butler

Do you listen to Rush Limbaugh on the radio or read Ann Coulter’s columns? According to outgoing Tennessee U.S. Republican Sen. Bob Corker, you’re following a couple of tyrants. This according to CNN and The Memphis Commercial Appeal, which portrayed Corker as upset over Limbaugh’s and Coulter’s criticism of the lack of a deal to fund the border wall. According to the paper, Coulter recently called U.S. Republican President Donald Trump “gutless” and said he oversees “a joke presidency that scammed the American people.” Coulter also said she and most of Trump’s supporters won’t vote for him in 2020 if there is no border wall. Limbaugh, meanwhile, complained last week that Democrats were outmaneuvering Trump on the border wall issue. Limbaugh later said Trump told him he would fund the border wall or he’d shut the federal government down. “CNN reporter Manu Raju reported on Friday that Corker criticized the radio hosts and how Trump has responded,” according to The Commercial Appeal. “Do we succumb to tyranny of radio talk show hosts?” Raju quotes Corker as saying. “We have two talk radio hosts who influenced the president – that’s tyranny isn’t it?” This is not the first time Corker has reportedly said something…

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