Day: December 29, 2018

Knox County Reportedly Sues Itself, Loses $1 Million in Taxpayer Money

Chris Butler

Knox County has sued itself and spent nearly $1 million on legal fees, according to KnoxNews.com. The attorneys who did legal work on the case, as the website went on to say, are coming out of this quite well. This, of course, is all taxpayer money. According to Knox News, the suit pitted the Knox County Law Department against the county’s pension board and a few Knox County Sheriff’s Office deputies approved to receive benefits under the county retirement plan. “The Law Department sought to reverse a longstanding pension board process and require the board to calculate pensions on base salary and not total compensation (such as vacation pay) in accordance with changes to the county charter,” the website reported. “That ultimately translated to reduced pension benefits.” Authorities ruled the Knox County Law director couldn’t press on with the lawsuit. But, as the website went on to say, “the bills are still racking up.” County officials have announced they’ll pay $97,500 to settle attorney fees for the deputies the county sued, according to KnoxNews.com. “Attorneys Herb Moncier and Al Holifield originally asked for $190,000, but the county litigated down the amount,” the website reported. “In all, the county has legal fees…

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Dr. Carol M. Swain Commentary: Congress’s Role in Creating America’s Healthcare Crisis

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by Dr. Carol M. Swain   In 2017, President-elect Donald Trump sent pharmaceutical stocks into a nosedive by speaking an important truth. Drug companies, he said, are “getting away with murder” with their pricing of lifesaving drugs. True to his word, the president, since his election, has pushed for needed reforms  aimed at lowering the costs of prescription drugs. On this matter, the president and socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) agree: Americans are paying too much for drugs, medical supplies, and equipment. The president and Sanders would like to see U.S. prices aligned with other nations’ lower prices. I recently attended a meeting in Washington of health care professionals, where the attendees were mostly physicians and other citizens, including pastors and health care workers, concerned about the high cost of drugs and the effect that drug shortages have on their patients and congregants. The meeting was racially and politically diverse. Of great concern was the life-threatening situations people are placed in when making decisions about whether to purchase their medicine or pay the rent or house note. As informed as I am on many issues, this was an area of ignorance for me. I had never heard of legalized drug kickbacks and relationships between hospitals, facilities,…

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The Most People in Nearly 20 Years Quit Their Jobs for Better Ones in 2018

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by Tim Pearce   Roughly 2.4 percent of the Americans in the workforce quit their jobs in the past year, the fastest rate since 2001, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The BLS’s most recent version of the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) found that an average of 3.5 million Americans quit their jobs every month in 2018. The data suggest that more people are leaving jobs to search for or take opportunities elsewhere for better pay or more prestigious positions. “For any type of employment search, you won’t find a better time than right now,” Thomas Moran, CEO of the staffing agency Addison Group, told CNBC Make It. Unemployment has remained at historically low levels since September, the sign of a tight labor market that should drive wages and benefits up as employers compete to attract and retain workers. “For many, [quitting] is a smart move, as there’s a clear advantage to increasing your earning potential by switching jobs,” Glassdoor chief economist Andrew Chamberlain told CNBC. So far, wage growth has remained below economists’ expectations, though wages have picked up in the past year. Wages hit 3.1 percent annual growth in November, the first time…

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Democrats Already Sending Out Job Postings Seeking Lawyers to Investigate Trump

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by Nick Givas   House Democrats have already released job postings seeking lawyers and legal staff to help aid their upcoming investigations of President Donald Trump. Democrats want legislative counsel with experience in: “criminal law, immigration law, constitutional law, intellectual property law, commercial and administrative law (including antitrust and bankruptcy), or oversight work,” according to CNN. “They’re finding us,” Democratic Rep. Adam Smith told CNN Friday. “There are a lot of Democratic refugees out there after the Republicans took over the House, the Senate and the White House.” Democrats are set to take control of the House on Jan. 3. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is also seeking lawyers for “executive branch investigative counsel.” Congressional Democrats have said they will target Trump’s tax returns, his businesses, financial dealings, as well as former and current cabinet members who served under him. One Democratic House committee posted an ad on a job board on Capitol Hill immediately following November’s midterm election. The job posting did not name a specific committee, but said it will look to “conduct congressional investigations and advise on policy matters related to oversight of the executive branch,” CNN reported. Responsibilities for the new hires would include working on subpoenas, interviews,…

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Commentary: Cure for GOP Shutdown Fears is Forceful Messaging on the Wall, Not Surrendering

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by Peter Parisi   Supporters of border security can only hope that, over the Christmas recess, Santa gifted congressional Republicans with a crash course in effective messaging on the need for funding for President Donald Trump’s border wall. They will need it when Congress reconvenes Thursday amid the partial government shutdown caused by Democratic intransigence over funding the border barrier. The crash course should be taught by psychologists who would start by counseling weak-kneed GOP lawmakers that the best way to overcome a phobia—in this case, “shutdown-ophobia”—is to confront the fear head-on, rather than running away from it. The tutorial in messaging is needed because, until Trump forced their hand, GOP leaders in Congress were poised to throw away the only leverage they have to secure funding for the wall, by agreeing to another continuing budget resolution with almost no money for the wall. [ The liberal Left continue to push their radical agenda against American values. The good news is there is a solution. Find out more ] That capitulation would have only ensured the wall would never get funded, much less built, with Democrats—who are indefensibly opposed to border security, their protestations to the contrary notwithstanding—set to retake…

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Dr. Carol M. Swan Commentary: Congress’s Role in Creating America’s Healthcare Crisis

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by Dr. Carol M. Swain   In 2017, President-elect Donald Trump sent pharmaceutical stocks into a nosedive by speaking an important truth. Drug companies, he said, are “getting away with murder” with their pricing of lifesaving drugs. True to his word, the president, since his election, has pushed for needed reforms  aimed at lowering the costs of prescription drugs. On this matter, the president and socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) agree: Americans are paying too much for drugs, medical supplies, and equipment. The president and Sanders would like to see U.S. prices aligned with other nations’ lower prices. I recently attended a meeting in Washington of health care professionals, where the attendees were mostly physicians and other citizens, including pastors and health care workers, concerned about the high cost of drugs and the effect that drug shortages have on their patients and congregants. The meeting was racially and politically diverse. Of great concern was the life-threatening situations people are placed in when making decisions about whether to purchase their medicine or pay the rent or house note. As informed as I am on many issues, this was an area of ignorance for me. I had never heard of legalized drug kickbacks and relationships between hospitals, facilities,…

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Police Officer Deaths on Duty Increased in 2018, Report Finds

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by Neetu Chandak   A preliminary report released Thursday found U.S. police officer deaths on duty increased by 12 percent in 2018 from 2017. The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, a non-profit dedicated to making police officers’ work safer, found 144 police officers died between Jan. 1 and Dec. 27. Nearly 129 police officers died in the same time frame in 2017. The leading cause of death was gun-related followed by traffic-related incidents. Other forms of death included being struck by a train, having a heart attack and drowning. “The rising number of law enforcement officer deaths in 2018 is disappointing news after a decline in 2017,” the fund’s CEO Craig W. Floyd said in a press statement. “Sadly this reminds us that public safety is a dangerous job and can come at a very steep price.” Texas, Florida, California, and New York had the highest number of officer deaths with 11 each, according to the data. The District of Columbia along with 14 states did not have any police officer fatalities. The number of deaths could change as the numbers are not final, according to the fund. The report comes as an illegal immigrant allegedly shot and killed…

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Report Details Nature of Facebook’s Secret Rulebook Governing Global Speech

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by Chris White   Facebook’s secretive rulebook regulating how employees censor certain forms of expression contains numerous biases and outright errors, according to internal documents The New York Times obtained Friday. The nearly 1,400-page document shows the Silicon Valley company’s guidebook is riddled with mistakes and is not nimble enough to handle cultural nuance, the report notes. The guidelines censor mainstream speech in one country while allowing extremist language to fester in others. Several dozen Facebook employees gather every other Tuesday to brainstorm rules that flesh out what people can and cannot say while navigating the platform, according to TheNYT. The guidelines that are agreed upon are then sent out to 7,500-plus moderators around the world. The Facebook employees, many of whom are young, attempt to distill complex issues into concrete yes-or-no categories. Much of the post-by-post moderation is outsourced to companies that enlist unskilled workers, the report states, citing documents from an employee who worried the rule book is too intrusive. Moderators often use Google Translator for the mind-numbing work. They must recall countless rules and apply them to the hundreds of posts a day, with the cultural context largely stripped. They suss through emojis, smiley faces and sometimes innocuous…

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Missouri Federal Grand Jury Indicts 14 in Home Health Care Scam

Anna Marie Bolton

A fraud scheme perpetrated on taxpayer-funded Medicare and Medicaid began to unravel with an anonymous tip alerting officials “that some Iraqis were fraudulently receiving home care services,” says a St. Louis Post-Dispatch report from earlier this month. Investigators examined billing records from several home health care companies that provide services to the elderly or infirmed. They then compared those to travel records for both the caregiver and the recipient of the care, finding that one or the other was out of the country at the time the care was allegedly provided. Two weeks ago, a federal grand jury indicted 14 involved in the $1.3 million fraud, reports the Post-Dispatch. The story was later picked up by a newsletter for the home health care industry. The 14 charged included employees of the agencies as well as clients, and they are: Kian Abdollah, 52 Mohammed Abdollah, 78 Dalia Ahmed, 27 Dena Ahmed, 30 Fatemeh Akbari, 73 Hala Alalewi, 38 Haider Albab, 75 Nouria Habeb, 67 Pegdah Heidari, 27 Tony Iyar, 57 Ghufran Abdallah Jaber, 51 Huda Mohammedjamil, 53 Hend Msallati, 33 Asal Yousif, 53 An investigation launched into one of the clients earlier this year began to shed light on the fraudulent activity. According…

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Second Amendment Groups Vow to Fight Minnesota DFL’s Gun Control Efforts

Anthony Gockowski

The only thing barring Democrats from total control of Minnesota’s government is a one-seat Republican majority in the Senate, but that might not be enough to block gun-control efforts during the upcoming session. Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka (R-Nisswa) recently indicated that he has “some openness” on the Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party’s gun-control proposals, but insisted that he’s a “strong supporter of Second Amendment rights.” https://twitter.com/paulgazelka/status/1075130258813280258 But his December 18 tweet sparked some optimism among DFL legislators, who now believe they “have a pretty good chance this year of convincing suburban legislators who might have been reluctant in the past to vote for these bills,” Sen. Ron Latz (D-St. Louis Park) told KSTP. Latz said the DFL is looking at two specific gun-control policies, namely universal background checks in the state as well as a “red flag” law, which allows the state to temporarily seize guns from people who are deemed a danger to themselves or others. As Battleground State News reported Thursday, House Speaker-designate Melissa Hortman (D-Brooklyn Park) said a “gun violence prevention measure” can be expected in a package of bills introduced in January. Rob Doar, vice president and political director of Minnesota’s Gun Owners Caucus, noted that there…

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Trump Threatens to ‘Entirely’ Close US-Mexico Border Unless Wall Funding is Secured

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President Donald Trump on Friday once again threatened to close the entire U.S.-Mexico border and cut aid to Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador if Congress fails to give him money to fund the border wall. In a series of tweets, Trump also asked to change the “ridiculous immigration laws that our country is saddled with.” The comments come as the U.S. government enters the seventh day of a partial shutdown as a budget standoff remains between Trump, who wants $5 billion in wall funding, and Democratic lawmakers, who back a modest increase in overall border security funding but resolutely oppose a wall. Closing the U.S.-Mexican border would mean disrupting a $1.68 billion-a-day trade relationship between the two countries, according to the office of the U.S. Trade Representative. Immigrant advocates have called the move to seal the border “disgraceful.” Trump has declined to comment on whether he might accept less than $5 billion for wall funding. When asked Wednesday how long he thinks the shutdown will last, Trump told reporters, “Whatever it takes.” Democrats have blamed Trump for “plunging the country into chaos” adding that, weeks ago, Trump said he would be “proud” to “own” a shutdown over border wall funding.…

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Commentary: Can Ohio’s Sherrod Brown Return the Dems to Blue-Collar Roots?

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by Henry Olsen   Senator Sherrod Brown is one of many Democrats considering a run for the White House. His name likely does not ring a bell, as he has not garnered the national attention that other potential rivals have. Many observers think he could be a formidable opponent for President Trump should he gain the Democratic nomination. The evidence, however, suggests that might be easier said than done. The case for Brown starts—and often stops—with his long courting of Ohio’s working-class voters, usually with favorable results. He has doggedly opposed free trade deals throughout his Senate career, even leading the effort to defeat the Central American Free Trade Association (CAFTA) during the Bush Administration. A consistent ally of Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in the Senate, Brown’s economic populism nevertheless stems from a labor union rather than a doctrinaire social democratic outlook. That viewpoint, the argument goes, makes him a solid choice to battle Trump for the loyalties of the white working-class voter whose defection from the Democrats made Trump president. That argument overlooks, however, Brown’s distinctly non-working-class views on nearly every other issue. Brown has one of the most progressive records in the Senate on a raft of issues, not…

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Potential Massive Earthquake Likely to Affect Nashville Differently Than Rest of State

Chris Butler

If a large earthquake were to rattle Tennessee then Nashville and the rest of Middle Tennessee likely would not feel the same damage as other parts of the state, according to a Memphis geologist. The effects of such an earthquake on Tennessee’s bridges, including one on I-40 that goes over the Tennessee River west of Nashville, is unclear, said Gary Patterson of the Center for Earthquake Research and Information. “We don’t have a record of a large damaging earthquake in east or Middle Tennessee, but we do in Northwest Tennessee,” Patterson told The Tennessee Star. A large earthquake that originated in Caruthersville, Mo. in 1895 disrupted Nashville, to an extent, by damaging chimneys and cracking walls, Patterson said. “That is the only record I’ve seen of quake damage in Nashville, although the larger earthquakes of 1811 and 1812 certainly affected the city,” Patterson said. Tennessee lies along two fault lines — — the New Madrid Fault Line in West Tennessee and the East Tennessee fault line. As The Star reported, a series of high-magnitude quakes that originated in the central part of the United States wrecked Memphis in 1811 and 1812. Those quakes started along the New Madrid Fault line in Missouri. Their reverberations…

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