Day: February 6, 2019

Two Proposed Amendments to the Tennessee Constitution Passed the First Hurdle in the Senate

Laura Baigert

NASHVILLE, Tennessee – Two proposed amendments to the Constitution of The State of Tennessee easily passed the first hurdle in the Senate on Tuesday. The Senate State and Local Government Committee voted to advance two resolutions, which is the initial step in the Constitutional Amendment process, SJR0001 by Senator Ken Yager (R-Kingston) and SJR0003 by Senator Frank Niceley (R-Strawberry Plains). Senator Yager’s resolution will amend Article VI, Section 5 of the Tennessee Constitution such that the selection of the State’s Attorney General and Reporter would be nominated by the Supreme Court and confirmed by the General Assembly. As currently provided for in the State Constitution, the Attorney General and Reporter is appointed by the judges of the Supreme Court. As Senator Yager explained to the Committee, his Amendment would provide more transparency by having the Attorney General and Reporter nominated by the Supreme Court in an open court with a recorded vote. Following the Supreme Court’s nomination, the Tennessee General Assembly would have 60 days to confirm. The confirmation must be in both the Senate and the House, separately and with a majority vote. In the event, the General Assembly is not in session when a nomination is made, the…

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Commentary: Nine Big Questions To Ask the Democratic Socialist in Your Life

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by Hunter Baker   Democratic socialism is hot in the United States right now. Both the American media and young people seem to be enamored of the thought of steeply progressive, redistributive tax rates designed to achieve some vision of justice. As with most public policy ideas, we tend to get pretty far down the road before we ask basic questions related to the project. In other words, we imagine a result that appeals to us before we’ve really considered whether other effects are likely and whether the proposal is morally right in the first place. Accordingly, I encourage anyone thinking about democratic socialism to ask the following questions: 1. What is the moral basis for taxing some incomes at higher rates than others? 2. Do we imagine that incomes are entirely the result of some random process? While John Rawls makes an argument along those lines — essentially, that no one really deserves their money because they didn’t control the family they were born into, their genes, etc. — there is a reasonable argument to be made that many people with such advantages seem to fail, while others who lack those advantages seem to succeed. In other words, attributes…

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Ginsburg Makes First Public Appearance Since Cancer Surgery

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Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg made her first public appearance since undergoing lung cancer surgery, attending a concert in her honor given by her daughter-in-law and other musicians. Ginsburg, 85, had surgery in New York on Dec. 21. She missed arguments at the court in January, her first illness-related absence in more than 25 years as a justice, and has been recuperating at her home in Washington. On Monday night, Ginsburg attended a concert at a museum a few blocks from the White House. It was given by Patrice Michaels, who is married to Ginsburg’s son, James. Michaels is a soprano and composer. The concert was dedicated to Ginsburg’s life in the law. The justice sat in the back of the darkened auditorium at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. The National Constitution Center, which sponsored the concert, did not permit photography. The performance concluded with a song set to Ginsburg’s answers to questions. In introducing the last song, Michaels said, “bring our show to a close, but not the epic and notorious story of RBG.” Ginsburg had two previous bouts with cancer. She had colorectal cancer in 1999 and pancreatic cancer in 2009. James Ginsburg said…

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Commentary: A Liberty Movement Is Growing in Putin’s Russia

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by Lawrence W. Reed   Except for a fishing trip to northern Canada in the 1960s, my first visit to a foreign country was to the old Soviet Union in March 1985. It was the month in which Soviet leadership passed from the aging old guard of communist hardliners into the hands of a younger and less rigid generation personified by Mikhail Gorbachev. Almost immediately, life loosened up. The Fall of Communism Between 1985 and 1991, I traveled four more times to the USSR. On my fifth visit, two weeks before the August 1991 failed coup against Gorbachev, I stopped in Kiev, Ukraine, and participated in a mass demonstration for Ukrainian independence from the Evil Empire. Other former satellites from Poland to Romania had already liberated themselves, and in December 1991, the USSR itself ceased to exist. Ukraine and 14 other constituent parts of the USSR became independent nations again. Those were heady days. Transformative ideas, circumstances, and personalities—the three elements that must be aligned to produce big changes—assembled in an extraordinary constellation. It yielded the most explosive geopolitical alterations of my lifetime. As a person whose first appreciation of liberty sprung from a teenage aversion to communist tyranny, witnessing…

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Sexual Assault Accusation Against Virginia Lt. Gov. Draws Comparison to Kavanaugh Claims

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by Peter Hasson   The uncorroborated sexual assault allegation against Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, a Democrat, has drawn comparisons to the uncorroborated allegations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Fairfax issued a statement early Monday morning disputing a report by the right-wing blog Big League Politics, which linked Fairfax to an accusation of sexual assault at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Fairfax said at a press conference Monday that he had a consensual encounter with the woman, but denied that he sexually assaulted her. Fairfax is poised to succeed embattled Gov. Ralph Northam if the Virginia Democrat resigns over a racist photo on his yearbook page that showed a man wearing blackface and another wearing a Klu Klux Klan robe. Northam first admitted to being one of the people in the photo, before backtracking and saying he wore blackface on a different occasion, but not in the photo. The Washington Post reported on Monday that it had been aware of the allegation against Fairfax for over a year, but was unable to corroborate it. Fairfax “incorrectly” claimed the Post declined to publish the claim because it found “red flags” regarding the woman’s story, according to the paper. “Fairfax and…

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Dr. Carol M. Swain Commentary: Progressives’ Duplicitous Use of Abortion Activism to ‘Cull’ the Black Population

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by Dr. Carol M. Swain   Do black lives matter to progressives? The most obvious answer is “No.” The lives of marginalized populations have never mattered to progressives. A hint about how progressive elites think and operate is found in Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s 2009 interview with The New York Times. When asked about the Roe v. Wade ruling and the Hyde Amendment, which bars federal dollars for abortion, Ginsburg casually said: “Frankly, I had thought that, at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth, and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of. So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion.” This Ginsburg quote about Roe v. Wade was as startling as her recommendation that the age of consent for children having sex with adults should be lowered to 12. Ginsburg’s attitude toward undesirables brings to mind the proclamation of the governing pigs in “Animal Farm”: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” Feminists Have Duped Black Women Black women stood and celebrated with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo when he recently signed one of the most liberal…

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Federal District Judges Have Blocked Trump Actions 30 Times, a Record Rate

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by Fred Lucas   Federal district judges who preside over a portion of a single state have been able to block President Donald Trump’s actions 30 times through nationwide injunctions—far more than any other administration in history, according to the Justice Department. The trend has prompted the Trump administration’s Justice Department to seek an end to nationwide injunctions, following a similar argument made by the Obama administration. “The core problem, in other words, is not so much the geographic scope of the injunction, but its reach far beyond the confines of the case or controversy before the court,” Beth Williams, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Policy, said Monday at a forum at The Heritage Foundation. “Injunctive relief should be no broader than necessary to provide complete relief to the party,” Williams said. Judges on the lower federal courts issued injunctions against Trump administration policies providing extreme vetting of immigrants from countries deemed to be failed states; denying funding to sanctuary cities that won’t cooperate with federal law enforcement on immigration law; and tightening the asylum process for illegal immigrants, among other issues. Lower courts issued these injunctions far in excess of previous administrations, according to…

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Progressive Nonprofit Refuses to Say If It Fired DC Antifa Leader

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by Andrew Kerr   The progressive nonprofit that employed Washington, D.C. Antifa leader Joseph “Jose” Alcoff is refusing to say whether he was fired following his arrest in connection to a mob attack against two Marines in November who were mistaken for being members of a white supremacist group. One of the victims identified Alcoff, also known as “Chepe,” as the man who “punched him several times about his face, and called him a ‘wet back,’” according to an affidavit filed in Alcoff’s case. Alcoff faces 17 charges, including multiple counts of aggravated assault, ethnic intimidation and terroristic threats. The Daily Caller News Foundation unmasked Alcoff in a Dec. 19 report as an organizer of Smash Racism DC, the Antifa group responsible for mobbing Fox News host and DCNF co-founder Tucker Carlson’s house in November. The report was an integral factor leading to Alcoff’s arrest, according to the affidavit. Carter Dougherty, the communications director for Americans for Financial Reform (AFR), the nonprofit organization where Alcoff worked as a campaign organizer and rubbed shoulders with high-profile Democratic lawmakers, told TheDCNF on Tuesday that “as of December, Mr. Alcoff no longer works for AFR.” Thank you @MaxineWaters for standing up for @CFPB…

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Democrat Senator Patty Murray Blocks Infanticide Ban

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by Katrina Trinko   Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., blocked Monday night Republican Sen. Ben Sasse’s push to pass the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Act by unanimous consent. “We’re actually talking about babies that have been born,” Sasse, who represents Nebraska, said in a Senate floor speech Monday. “The only debate on the floor tonight is about infanticide.” The Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Act states that “If an abortion results in the live birth of an infant, the infant is a legal person for all purposes under the laws of the United States, and entitled to all the protections of such laws” and would require health care professionals to care for the child and take the child to a hospital. “We have laws against infanticide in this country. This is a gross misinterpretation of the actual language of the bill that is being asked to be considered and therefore, I object,” said Murray, per The Hill. When speaking about the need for legislation, Sasse mentioned Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia, who is now under fire following the discovery of his medical school yearbook page including a picture featuring two men, one in blackface and one in a Ku Klux Klan costume. Northam suggested…

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Elizabeth Warren Has Been Caught Calling Herself ‘American Indian’ Again

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by Chuck Ross   As a young lawyer in the 1980s, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren described herself as “American Indian” on a registration form for the State Bar of Texas, even though the 2020 presidential hopeful has scant Native American ancestry. The Washington Post obtained a form that Warren filled out in April 1986 for a legal license in Texas which showed that the Democrat signed the form and, in her own handwriting, wrote that she was “American Indian.” Warren was working at the time for the University of Texas law school in Austin. “She is sorry that she was not more mindful of this earlier in her career,” Kristin Orthman, a spokeswoman for Warren’s campaign, told The Post. The newspaper buried the lede of the story, which is headlined “Elizabeth Warren apologizes for calling herself Native American.” Warren, who was born in Oklahoma, has been plagued by revelations that she falsely claimed minority and Native American status throughout her professional career. When Warren began working at Harvard University in 1995, she approved being listed as Native American. The Ivy League school included Warren in its tally of minority faculty from 1995 through 2004, The Post notes. Warren, who has…

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Scott DesJarlais, Marsha Blackburn, Voice Support for Donald Trump After State of the Union

Chris Butler

U.S. Republican Rep. Scott DesJarlais of Tennessee’s Fourth Congressional District said Tuesday night that he supported the remarks U.S. Republican President Donald Trump made at this year’s State of the Union. DesJarlais attended the president’s speech, delivered Tuesday. DesJarlais, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, as well as the House Agriculture Committee, issued the following statement in support of conservative economic policies, stronger border security and other elements of Trump’s speech: “More than 90 percent of the media coverage of President Trump is negative, despite our successful work to rejuvenate the economy, which has produced fantastic jobs reports recently. This State of the Union Address was an opportunity for him to address the American people directly, although millions, especially in Tennessee, are experiencing for themselves the power of conservative policies placing middle-class families and small businesses first,” DesJarlais said. “Lower taxes, lighter regulation, and energy independence have helped to create a surging manufacturing sector, rising wages and economic growth, which the prior Administration claimed would never return.” Trump is “also returning the U.S. military to its dominant status, necessary to defend the United States against foreign adversaries, including Mexican cartels,” DesJarlais said. DesJarlais said he, like Trump, is…

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Gavin McInnes Sues SPLC for Defamation Over Hate Group Label

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Gavin McInnes

by Grace Carr   Political commentator and writer Gavin McInnes filed a Monday lawsuit against a group dedicated to combating intolerance, alleging that its actions have contributed to his loss of employment and slandering on social media. McInnes sued the U.S. Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) for its label of the Proud Boys as a hate group. The Proud Boys is made up of “western chauvinists who refuse to apologize for creating the modern world,” according to its website. SPLC lists the Proud Boys’ ideology as “general hate,” describing the group as a white nationalist organization known for anti-Muslim and misogynistic rhetoric. McInnes equates the description with defamation. He is a Vice Media co-founder and founded the Proud Boys in 2016. The Proud Boys allows and has members from multiple races. SPLC “combats hate, intolerance, and discrimination through education and litigation,” according to its Twitter handle. It was founded in 1971. McInnes filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, Reuters reported. “They [SPLC] have harassed me, my family, and my friends to a level of tortious interference that goes well into sabotage,” McInnes said in a statement, according to Reuters. “I am doing…

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New Private School to Open in Chattanooga

Chris Butler

This fall, Chattanooga Christian School and Olivet Baptist are scheduled to launch a new private school that will cater to students in kindergarten through the fifth grades, according to The Chattanooga Times Free Press. According to the paper, officials will call it the King School, and they will have it on church grounds, the paper said. This, the paper said, is “a new education option for students in the city’s worst-performing schools.” “The venture, leaders say, is meant to provide more quality education options to students for whom a private school education is unattainable and to increase educational equity in Chattanooga,” according to The Times Free Press. Chad Dirkse, president of Chattanooga Christian School, told the paper that “families desire educational equity and that the more options they have, the better off they are.” The school’s tuition is $6,500 per year and is designed so low-income families may more easily access the school, according to The Times Free Press. The school will start year one with two classes of 12 students each, for kindergarten and another for the first-grade, the paper said. The school plans “small class sizes, low student-to-faculty ratios, engaging curriculum and extracurricular opportunities,” according to The Chattanooga…

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Community Oversight Now Tries to Frighten Athletes Away from Tennessee

Chris Butler

Members of the group Community Oversight Now say they have an unorthodox way to keep state legislators from tinkering with Tennessee’s community oversight boards. Those boards, of course, exist, to monitor police. Members of the Tennessee General Assembly want to place guardrails on those boards, which some people say have too much authority and might exist to retaliate against police. Community Oversight Now, not surprisingly, is suiting up for battle. The group’s strategy — discourage as many talented high school athletes as possible from eventually playing sports at Tennessee’s colleges and universities. This, according to a press release members of the organization released Tuesday on their Facebook page. The campaign will target the top-ranked football and basketball high school athletes in the classes of 2020 and 2021. This includes the top 300 football players and top 100 basketball players in the country that rank in recruitment sites such as ESPN 300 and Rivals.com. They also include first and second team all-state athletes in Tennessee and other Mid-South states, the press release said. “The withdrawal of support means we are making a vigorous effort to steer these athletes away from Tennessee institutions and to accept athletic scholarships elsewhere,” according to the press…

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The Tennessee Star Report Discusses Legislation to Put Guardrails on Community Oversight Boards with Special Guest State Rep. Mike Curcio

Julie Carr

On Tuesday’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 – Gill and Leahy talked about the current oversight boards and the need for ‘guard rails’ to prevent mismanagement by unelected officials that may wield political power fueled by an axe to grind. The three men went into more detail towards the end of the segment touching upon the importance of police officers maintaining the same rights as citizens who are entitled the element of due process… “innocent until proven guilty.” Gill: Michael Curcio is a state representative. He’s a chairman of the judiciary committee of the state house and he and his fellow legislators are trying to put some guard rails on this new community oversight board process that the city of Nashville is trying to impose. And Representative Curcio good to have you with us my friend! Curcio: Hey glad to be here this morning. Thanks for having me. Gill: You know, we are already seeing a lot of reports of police officers in Nashville deciding that they are going to retire if they’re at a certain age or…

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Line 3 Protesters Arrested for Putting People’s Lives ‘at Risk’ After Turning Off Enbridge Pipeline

Anthony Gockowski

A group of four protesters seemingly affiliated with the Catholic Workers Movement were arrested Monday after video showed them disabling an Enbridge pipeline in northern Minnesota. The protesters, calling themselves “Four Necessity Valve Turners,” say they were left with no choice but to take “direct action” in the ongoing fight over reconstructing Enbridge’s aging Line 3 pipeline. In a live-stream of their demonstration, the protesters claim that they “succeeded in shutting down Enbridge Line 4.” Enbridge wouldn’t confirm whether or not this is true in a statement to Duluth News-Tribune, but video of the incident clearly shows the protesters using wrenches to tamper with a pipeline in a fenced-off area. “We’re back on. We heard some sirens but they weren’t for us. We’re going to keep trying to get this thing off,” one of the protesters says in the video while another asks if it seems “too dangerous to wedge something in here.” Duluth News-Tribune reported that the four were ultimately arrested and an Enbridge spokeswoman later said that the company supports “the prosecution of all those involved.” “The recent scientific study on climate change presented to the UN indicates that the threat of irreversible damage and destruction to our…

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State Representative Bruce Griffey Makes Official Statement On Congressman Steve Cohen’s Boycott of State of The Union Address

Laura Baigert

  NASHVILLE, Tennessee — On Tuesday, newly-elected State Representative Bruce Griffey (R-Paris) made an official statement to The Tennessee Star in response to Democrat U.S. Representative Steve Cohen’s (TN-09) boycott of President Trump’s State of the Union address scheduled for that evening. As reported by several news outlets on Monday, Cohen was the third Democrat to make such an announcement, telling The Hill, “I will not attend the State of the Union once again this year.” Cohen continued, “I’ll come to the House Chamber for the State of the Union the next time I can hear from a president who will tell the truth about the State of the Union.” In response to Cohen’s boycott announcement, Griffey told The Star, “I’m thrilled, elated, excited and happy for all Tennesseans, because I think Steve Cohen would be an embarrassment to Tennessee.” Not only did he boycott President Trump’s State of the Union address last year, but in November 2017 Cohen filed articles of impeachment against President Trump. Griffey is a strong supporter of President Donald Trump. His conclusion about Cohen, “He’s an embarrassment currently for Tennesseans.” — Laura Baigert is a senior reporter with The Tennessee Star.        …

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Ilhan Omar’s State of the Union Guest Says Trump Should be ‘Ashamed of Himself’

Anthony Gockowski

Every member of Congress gets one guest ticket for the annual State of the Union address, and it’s often used to score quick political points. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN-05), for instance, invited Linda Clark, an immigrant from Liberia who is at risk of deportation because of President Donald Trump’s decision to terminate the Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) program. “Clark came to the United States in 2000, after fleeing Civil War in her home country of Liberia,” a press release from Omar’s office explains. “As a result of Trump’s decision, thousands of Liberian Americans could be removed from the U.S. at the end of March if DED is not renewed. Minnesota is home to the largest community of Liberian Americans of any state in the nation.” Omar said that Clark is “exactly the type of Americans success story we should celebrate,” calling her “someone who came to this country seeking a better life, played by the rules, and built a life for herself.” “I am pleased to have her join me at the State of the Union and urge the Trump Administration to renew DED status for Liberian Americans,” Omar said. “The president himself has expressed open hatred towards people fleeing…

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Trump in State of the Union Address: ‘We Must Choose Between Greatness and Gridlock’

Anthony Gockowski

President Donald Trump delivered his second State of the Union address Tuesday night in front of a bitterly divided Congress. His address touched on a number of sensitive issues, including the southern border wall, and the recent pro-abortion legislation passed in New York. He began, however, with a call for unity, urging Congress to “govern not as two parties, but as one nation.” “The agenda I’m laying out this evening is not a Republican agenda, or a Democrat agenda. It’s the agenda of the American people,” Trump said. “Victory is not winning for our party. Victory is winning for our country.” Trump called illegal immigration a “moral issue,” saying the “lawless state of our southern border is a threat to the safety, security, and financial well-being of all Americans.” “We have a moral duty to create an immigration system that protects the lives and jobs of our citizens. This includes our obligation to the millions of immigrants living here today who follow the rules and respected our laws. Legal immigrants enrich our nation and strengthen our society in countless ways,” Trump said. He went on to claim that the issue of illegal immigration “illustrates the divide between America’s working class…

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