Joining the lineup with 2018 CMA Entertainer of the Year winner Urban were Grammy-winning rocker Peter Frampton; Country artist Brett Young, the Academy of Country Music’s New Male Vocalist of the Year; genre-bending rock/pop band Judah & the Lion; critically-acclaimed pop rock singer/songwriter Caitlyn Smith; contemporary soul and rock artist Devon Gilfillian; and the Fisk Jubilee Singers.
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by Victor David Hanson The unlikely 2016 election of Donald Trump—the first president without either prior political or military office—was a repudiation of the American “aristocracy.” By “rule of the best” I mean the ancien régime was no longer understood to suggest wealth and birth (alone), but instead envisioned itself as a supposed national meritocracy of those with proper degrees, and long service in the top hierarchies of government, media, blue-chip law firms, Wall Street, high tech, and academia. The 2016 election and refutation of the ruling class did not signal that those without such educations and qualifications were de facto better suited to direct the country. Instead, the lesson was that the past record of governance and the current stature of our assumed best and brightest certainly did not justify their reputations or authority, much less their outsized self-regard. In short, instead of being a meritocracy, they amount to a mediocracy, neither great nor awful, but mostly mediocre. This mediocracy is akin to late 4th-century B.C. Athenian politicians, the last generation of the Roman Republic, the late 18th-century French aristocracy, or the British bipartisan elite of the mid-1930s—their reputations relying on the greater wisdom and accomplishment of an…
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by Joshua Gill An Ohio hospital confirmed Monday that it no longer employs a doctor who made anti-Semitic comments and promised to give Jewish patients the wrong medication. The Cleveland Clinic said in its statement that it became aware of the social media posts by Lara Kollab, 27, who worked at the clinic from July to September 2018, and that her beliefs conflicted with those of the clinic. The hospital did not state, however, whether Kollab had been let go as a direct result of her tweets. Kollab had a history of making violently anti-Semitic comments on social media. An online compilation of Kollab’s tweets showed she often referred to Jews as “dogs,” invoked Allah to kill them, and denigrated both Israel and the U.S. “Cleveland Clinic was recently made aware of comments posted to social media by a former employee,” the hospital’s Monday statement reads. “This individual was employed as a supervised resident at our hospital from July to September 2018. She is no longer working at Cleveland Clinic. In no way do these beliefs reflect those of our organization. We fully embrace diversity, inclusion and a culture of safety and respect across our entire health system,” the…
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Just 33 minutes into the New Year, NASA’s New Horizons probe made space exploration history, flying by the most distant body ever visited by a spacecraft from earth. The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, which built and operates the spacecraft, said Tuesday it had “zipped past” the object known as 2014 MU69, or Ultima Thule. About 10 hours later, Mission Operations Manager Alice Bowman said “We’ve just accomplished the most distant flyby,” to enthusiastic applause from colleagues. New Horizons, which is the size of a baby grand piano and part of an $800 million mission launched in 2006, collected data for four hours after the flyby. Scientists said it will take almost two years for the probe to send back all the data it collected during its encounter with Ultima Thule. Early blurry images showed and oblong shaped object nearly 35 kilometers long and more than 14 kilometers wide. More images and data were expected to begin arriving later Tuesday, giving scientists the first close look at a building block of the planets in our solar system. “Everything we are going to learn about Ultima … are going to teach us about the original formation conditions of objects in…
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President Donald Trump’s most prominent GOP critics on Capitol Hill are days away from completing their Senate careers, raising the question of who will take their place as willing to publicly criticize a president who remains popular with nearly 9 in 10 Republican voters. Sens. Jeff Flake of Arizona and Bob Corker of Tennessee engaged in a war of words with the president on myriad issues over the past 18 months, generating headlines and fiery tweets from a president who generally insists on getting the last word. Those battles put them on the outs with many in their own party, and they paid a price. Both decided to retire rather than take on a difficult re-election campaign. Flake was far and away Trump’s most consistent critic among Senate Republicans. Corker weighed in less often, but his description of the White House as an “adult day care center” rankled the president, who dubbed him “Liddle’ Bob Corker.” The feud continued as Corker headed for the exits, with Trump asserting that Corker’s promise to serve only two terms was not the real reason he retired. Rather, Corker “wanted to run but poll numbers TANKED when I wouldn’t endorse him,” Trump tweeted. Corker…
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Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts is using his annual report on the federal judiciary to highlight the steps the branch has taken to combat inappropriate conduct in the workplace. In December 2017, Roberts asked that a working group be put together to examine the judiciary’s workplace conduct policies. His request followed news reports about prominent federal appeals court judge Alex Kozinski, who retired following accusations by women, including former law clerks, that he had touched them inappropriately, made lewd comments and shown them pornography. The working group of judges and judiciary officials that Roberts asked be convened issued a report in June, finding that inappropriate conduct is not widespread among the judiciary branch’s 30,000 employees but also is “not limited to a few isolated instances.” The group offered a range of recommendations for further action. Roberts, in his New Year’s Eve report, endorsed those recommendations, which focus on revising the codes of conduct the judiciary has for judges and employees, streamlining the process for identifying and correcting misconduct, and expanding training programs aimed at preventing inappropriate behavior. Roberts did not say anything in the report about the sexual assault allegations that nearly derailed the confirmation of the court’s newest…
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by Murray N. Rothbard Our country is beset by a large number of economic myths that distort public thinking on important problems and lead us to accept unsound and dangerous government policies. Here are ten of the most dangerous of these myths and an analysis of what is wrong with them. Myth #1 Deficits are the cause of inflation; deficits have nothing to do with inflation. In recent decades we always have had federal deficits. The invariable response of the party out of power, whichever it may be, is to denounce those deficits as being the cause of our chronic inflation. And the invariable response of whatever party is in power has been to claim that deficits have nothing to do with inflation. Both opposing statements are myths. Deficits mean that the federal government is spending more than it is taking in taxes. Those deficits can be financed in two ways. If they are financed by selling Treasury bonds to the public, then the deficits are not inflationary. No new money is created; people and institutions simply draw down their bank deposits to pay for the bonds, and the Treasury spends that money. Money has simply been transferred from…
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by Silvio Simonetti Since the British population decided to strike a coup in the liberal political establishment voting for the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union (Brexit), Westminster is in a political crisis. David Cameron resigned after the referendum’s outcome, and Theresa May’s government is burning in flames, and no one knows if she will survive a vote of confidence initiated by conservative backbenchers. To understand the political drama of the modern United Kingdom and Brexit, one must understand the significance of Margaret Thatcher, her relationship with Europe and with the British people. Thatcher was an enthusiast of European economic integration because she believed that this would be the only way to impose fiscal rigor on the UK in the long run. It was long afterward, and too late, that she came to understand that the pan-European project was, in fact, a plan of the Eurocrats to destroy the nation-states in favor of one United States of Europe controlled by an authoritarian bureaucracy in Brussels. Thatcher’s famous Bruges Speech (1988), in which she described the European unification project as an attempt to “introduce collectivism and corporatism” and “concentrate power at the center of a European conglomerate,” was given when…
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by Henry Rodgers House Democrats are putting together a plan to end the partial government shutdown, which does not include any additional funding for President Donald Trump’s border wall. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who vehemently opposed the border wall, calling it “immoral, ineffective and expensive,” and her Democratic colleagues reportedly put together legislation that would reopen the government and allocate $1.3 billion to border security, however, none of that would be allowed to go to a border wall. The Democrats plan to introduce the legislation on the House floor Thursday, when they regain control, according to Fox News. Republican North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows, chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, previously said he does not believe Trump will agree to the Democrats’ counteroffer of $1.3 billion that could be used for the border wall, stating he does not think the amount is “reasonable.” The government will remain shut down until a compromise can be worked out among the two parties. “The time to stand up for the American people and fight for wall funding is now. The time to act is now. That’s why we were elected and it’s time we follow through,” Meadows told the The Daily…
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by Jose Nino Is more gun control legislation coming to Congress? The 2018 midterm elections produced a split Congress with Democrats gaining control of the House and Republicans gaining seats in the Senate. The change in House leadership will signal changes in gun control legislation in the near future. The Guardian has detailed House Democrats’ desire to pass gun control legislation in the upcoming Congress: “Ted Deutch, a Democratic congressman from Florida who represents Parkland, where a February school shooting left 17 dead, said this week that he expected House Democrats to focus on bills with more bipartisan support. Those measures included bump stock bans and “extreme risk protection orders”, also known as red flag laws, which give law enforcement and family members a way to petition a court to temporarily bar an unstable person from buying or owning guns.” Red flag laws might just be the “come together” moment establishment politicians have been looking for. What Are Red Flag Laws? Red flag laws or Extreme Risk Protection Orders (ERPOs) are the euphemistic label for new gun-control measures. Under red flag laws, law enforcement has the ability to confiscate an individual’s firearms who is deemed a threat to themselves…
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by Brandon J. Weichert Dick Cheney doesn’t have a heart. That, at least, is the intended conclusion one is supposed to draw from the recent Dick Cheney biopic, “Vice,” starring Christian Bale. In “Vice,” audiences are subjected to a torrent of subliminal messages suggesting Dick Cheney is an abnormal human being; a political Svengali, worshiping at the blood-stained altar of power. Everything Cheney did, so the story goes, was predicated upon the assumption of absolute power for power’s sake. Whatever may be the legitimate criticisms about Dick Cheney, no one should believe such an inane leftist caricature any more than one should believe the grotesque false narrative that the elites today have about Trump. In both cases, these two very different men are far more complex than the tidy elite narratives would have it. “Vice” ultimately is a work a fiction. Yes, it includes real names and comprises actual bits of the real life experiences of the people portrayed in the film, but as a substantive contribution to understanding one of the most misunderstood political figures in American history, the film falls flat. “Vice” is the latest a string of recent dramas produced by the notorious comedy director and…
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Violent crimes increased by more than 50 percent in 2018 in Minneapolis’ Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, nicknamed “little Mogadishu,” which authorities attribute to Somali gang activity in the area. Buried in a recent Star Tribune article was the fact that violent crimes jumped from 54 in 2010 to 84 in 2018, an increase in roughly 56 percent. Authorities attribute the violence to rivalries between Somali gangs, such as the Somali Mafia, the Somali Outlaws, the Hot Boyz, and Madhibaan with Attitude, Alpha News reports. According to a 2014 Southside Pride article, the Outlaws and Madhibaan with Attitude have a rivalry that stretches back years, and likely resulted in the murder of two Somali men in April 2014. That article notes that the summer of 2013 was a particularly bloody season for gang warfare, which produced at least 4 killings. A 2013 CBS article detailed the involvement of the Outlaws, the Mafia, and another gang called the Lady Outlaws in a sex-trafficking ring that recruited and prostituted young girls, some of whom were under the age of 14, between 2000 and 2010. The ring was operated out of Minneapolis, Columbus, and Nashville, and resulted in the indictment of 30 individuals involved. In…
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In a rare display of unity, members of the coal lobby joined with environmental advocacy leaders to raise concerns following Gov. John Kasich’s (R-OH) decision to raid the state’s coal mining reclamation fund. In 2017, the state of Ohio was facing a heavy tax shortfall as a result of decreased tax revenues. In response, Kasich withdrew over $114 million dollars from 16 separate state agencies in order to fund more essential government functions. The Ohio coal mining reclamation fund was among these and lost more than $5 million. Currently, there are no plans or provisions in place to replace the funds. The fund is paid for by taxes collected from state coal mining companies, intended to reverse the damage done by mining over the past two centuries. For over 200 years, Ohio has been a major center of coal mining in America. Mining was essential to the development of Ohio’s economy. While surface mining can be done responsibly, the depleted land often requires significant investment to repair. Should this not occur, environmental damage can extend well past the intended areas. According to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’s Division of Mineral Resources, as of 1972, the problems included: 1,300 miles of streams polluted by…
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A man charged in the vehicular death Saturday of a Knoxville Fire Department captain’s son also has an ICE hold on his arrest, WBIR reported. Franco Cambrany Francisco-Eduardo, 44 has been charged with criminally negligent homicide, not having a driver’s license and failure to have proof of financial responsibility (having no insurance), WBIR said. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has a hold on him. Francisco-Eduardo, of Oak Ridge, is accused of killing Pierce Corcoran, 22 in the crash that happened on Chapman Highway around 6:30 p.m. Saturday, WVLT said. The Knoxville Police Department said Francisco-Eduardo’s Chevy pickup, which was heading north, crossed into the opposite lanes and hit Corcoran’s Honda Civic, causing a chain reaction. Corcoran and passenger Jade Adams, 21, were transported to UT Medical Center, where Corcoran was later pronounced dead, WVLT said. Adams was treated for her injuries. The other drivers were not injured. Corcoran was the son of Knoxville Fire Department Capt. and Public Information Officer D.J. Corcoran. Corcoran’s obituary by Stevens Mortuary said: In his 22 years, he tried his hand at every sport possible, developing a love of golf, soccer, tennis and running 2 marathons in 2017. He became an advocate for eating…
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