Day: February 9, 2019

University of Tennessee and University of Memphis Have Several Title IX Complaints Filed Against Them

Chris Butler

People in Tennessee lodged far more Title IX discrimination complaints against the University of Tennessee and the University of Memphis than other public entities in the state that take federal money, according to a new report. In laymen’s terms, that means a lot of people allege school officials discriminated against them because of their gender. More specifically, Title IX says no education program that takes federal taxpayer money can discriminate based on sex, and it includes protections against sexual harassment. According to a new report from Tennessee Comptrollers, the University of Memphis had 153 Title IX complaints in Fiscal Year 2018, a slight increase from 152 in Fiscal Year 2017. Schools in the University of Tennessee System, meanwhile, had 162 Title IX complaints in Fiscal Year 2018. The UT system had 166 such complaints in Fiscal Year 2017 and 129 in Fiscal Year 2016, according to the Comptrollers’ report. In an emailed statement, Kenneth P. Anderson, the University of Memphis’ Title IX coordinator for the Office of Institutional Equity, said the high number of complaints is “a positive.” “They speak to the University’s efforts to seriously address interpersonal violence and sexual misconduct,” Anderson told The Tennessee Star. “The University of…

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Commentary: Sharyl Attkisson Continues to Fight Bad Actors at Department of Justice

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by CHQ Staff   We Americans like to believe we live in a free country with the right to use the justice system to ensure that government abuses are stopped or redressed. Award-winning investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson has learned that’s far from the truth, and it’s an awful thing to experience first-hand. A federal appeals court recently heard oral arguments in Sharyl Attkisson’s lawsuit against former Attorney General Eric Holder, unnamed “John Doe” federal agents at the FBI and Justice Department, and others. At issue are the intrusions into her computers while she worked as an investigative reporter for CBS News, revealed by multiple forensic investigations showing use of proprietary government surveillance programs. To help Sharyl Attkisson expose the Obama-era surveillance visit her GoFundMe page. In a recent article for RealClearPolitics, Ms. Attkisson said it was clear early on that the Justice Department was not interested in investigating or prosecuting its own. So she began the search to find the facts about the invasion into her computers and life. That morphed into a lawsuit for damages, because that’s what the law sets out as the legal remedy. It’s been a long and frightening lesson, said Ms. Attkisson, because the government…

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Top EPA Official Leaves Government To Help Trump Fight ‘Venezuela-Style Socialism’

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by Michael Bastasch   Mandy Gunasekara served two years as a top Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) adviser, but now is leaving the government to be an advocate for President Donald Trump’s agenda. “There is a void out there of folks who can understand and have the pertinent experience to talk about the energy, environment and economic successes of the Trump administration,” Gunasekara told The Daily Caller News Foundation in an interview. “I was in the room when we were making these decisions and I know the why,” she added. Indeed, as the principal deputy assistant administrator to EPA’s air office, Gunasekara was “in the room” when the agency issued major rollbacks of Obama administration regulations, including the Clean Power Plan and fuel economy mandates. Gunasekara also worked with former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt to convince Trump to stick to his campaign promise and withdraw from the Paris climate accord. She was one of the few political appointees in place at EPA in the early days of the administration, so she spent many nights putting together the legal and policy rationale for withdrawal. Trump announced withdrawal in June 2017. “It was just helping him make it happen as the president,” Gunasekara…

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FAKE NEWS: Washington Post Repeatedly Botches Fact Check of Trump’s State of the Union Address

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Donald Trump

by James D. Agresti   Two days after airing a Super Bowl commercial that depicts journalists as people of great importance and integrity, the Washington Post published an error-ridden fact check of President Trump’s State of the Union address. Written by Glenn Kessler, Salvador Rizzo, and Meg Kelly, it contains an array of half-truths, straw men, and outright falsehoods. The State of the Southern Border During his address, Trump said: “The lawless state of our southern border is a threat to the safety, security, and financial wellbeing of all America.” In retort, the Post writes: “By any available measure, there is no new security crisis at the border.” That is a straw man argument, or a rebuttal to a point that wasn’t made. Trump did not say this is a “new” crisis. In fact, he portrayed it as a longstanding problem by saying, “Year after year, countless Americans are murdered by criminal illegal aliens.” Trump’s claim is correct. A 2011 Government Accountability Office study of 249,000 non-citizens in U.S. prisons and jails during 2003 to 2009 found that they had been arrested for 25,064 homicide-related crimes committed in the U.S. throughout their criminal careers. This isn’t even a full count…

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Errors Cause Judge to Throw Out Georgia Election a Second Time

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Rep. Chris Erwin finally won a seat in the Georgia legislature after a chaotic campaign in which a judge threw out the first election and ordered the vote to be redone in December. Now a court has ruled that illegal votes tainted the second election, forcing Erwin to prepare to step down and run for the job a third time less than a month after he was sworn into office. “It’s frustrating, I won’t say any different,” said Erwin, who’s already seeing signs of do-over deja vu in his district. “I drove to the dentist this morning and I rode by and noticed three of my campaign signs had been put out already.” Erwin and the fellow Republican he thought he had defeated twice last year, former state Rep. Dan Gasaway, are heading for a third showdown at the polls in state House District 28 in northeast Georgia. That’s after a Superior Court judge found illegal votes tainted both the initial GOP primary last May as well as the special do-over election held December 4. It’s yet another example of problems Georgia voters faced at the polls in 2018. In some cities, voters had to wait two hours or more…

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Mike Lee Slams Senate Judiciary Democrats for ‘Wildly Inappropriate’ Questions on Religion – Mazie Hirono Fires Back an Accusation

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by Molly Prince   Republican Utah Sen. Mike Lee condemned the Senate Judiciary Democrats on Thursday for questioning judicial nominees’ religious beliefs before the committee. Democratic Hawaii Sen. Mazie Hirono denied ever instituting a religious test and scolded Lee for what she believed was censuring her. “You can’t openly, publicly question a nominee about that nominee’s religious beliefs, about what he or she believes to be sinful conduct without subjecting that nominee to ridicule and simultaneously demeaning some of the fundamental tenets of our constitutional republic,” Lee said.”You can’t ask a nominee questions like those to which Neomi Rao was subjected just the other day and those that I’ve seen asked of some of our other nominees and then later ask the question ‘how did we get here?’” Lee’s condemnation came two days after Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey questioned Rao on her view of homosexuality and LGBTQ Americans during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing to vet her for a seat on the D.C. Circuit Court. Booker asked Rao if she considers gay relationships to be “immoral.” “I can’t fathom a circumstance in which it’s ever appropriate for us to ask a nominee about his or her religious…

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Measles Spreading in US, Mostly Among Unvaccinated Children

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"Measles" by Dave Haygarth

Measles is spreading in the U.S. As of Feb. 5, there were 50 cases in Washington state and five in Houston. New cases are being added daily. Health officials, including the U.S. surgeon general, are urging parents to get their children vaccinated. Measles was eliminated in the U.S. 19 years ago. The cases that occur here now are imported from other countries. But that is happening in the U.S. with greater frequency. Dr. Camille Sabella is a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the Cleveland Clinic. “Measles is incredibly contagious,” he said. “Once it gets around the community it’s very difficult because it’s airborne.” 18 state allow exemptions Eighteen states allow parents to not vaccinate their children if they have moral, personal or philosophical objections to it. A measles outbreak in the U.S. northwestern state of Washington has state health officials scrambling to contain it. Dr. Jason Hanley sees emergency cases at the medical center, PeaceHealth. “I hope I’m wrong, but I think the cases are going to get more frequent and spread throughout the country from this epicenter,” he said. Rural areas in the U.S. tend to have higher numbers of unvaccinated children. But there are significant numbers in cities…

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Matthew Whitaker: ‘Deeply Concerning’ That CNN Was at Roger Stone Raid

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by Chuck Ross   Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker said Friday that he found it “deeply concerning” that a CNN crew was present at the FBI raid of Roger Stone’s home in late January. “It was deeply concerning to me as to how CNN found out about that,” Whitaker told the House Judiciary Committee during a Justice Department oversight hearing. Whitaker says he was concerned that a CNN crew was camping out outside Roger Stone's house when he was arrested pic.twitter.com/V3RSmSuzkx — Yahoo News (@YahooNews) February 8, 2019 Stone was indicted under seal on Jan. 24 in the special counsel’s investigation and arrested at his home in Florida the next day. A CNN camera crew filmed as 29 FBI agents stormed Stone’s house around 6 a.m. local time. Stone has alleged that CNN was tipped off to his indictment and arrest, while the network has denied the claim. CNN says it sent reporters to Stone’s home after its Washington-based journalists noticed a flurry of activity at the federal courthouse on the day Stone was indicted. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham asked for an FBI briefing on the raid Tuesday. Graham asked whether CNN had advance knowledge of the raid…

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Commentary: Trump’s Wall and a Plan to Stop Cartels at the Border

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Zero Tolerance Border Security

by Bill Thomas   If you’ve been thinking Trump Derangement Syndrome couldn’t get any worse, consider the Democratic Party’s position on border security. Sitting behind President Trump during his State of the Union speech on Tuesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) spent much of the evening making faces at the back of his head. And when he asked members of Congress to “reject the politics of revenge and resistance” and embrace “compromise and the common good,” she flashed a look that said: “Not while I’m in charge.” Pelosi opposes a wall or anything else that discourages illegal aliens from getting into the country and staying here (preferably in red states, where they can do her party the most political good). By itself, this would be bad enough. But the same dangerously inadequate approach she and most Democrats favor for human traffic is also responsible for the record amount of illicit drugs pouring across the border, not to mention the epidemic of crime and drug-related deaths that comes with them. Follow the well-traveled routes of illegal immigration from the southern border northward and invariably you come to cities and states with the worst drug problems. If Pelosi has her way, that’s…

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Supreme Court Halts Louisiana Abortion Law – For Now

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by Elizabeth Slattery   Late Thursday night, the Supreme Court put on hold a Louisiana law that would require abortion doctors to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of their clinic. The Louisiana law was introduced by state Rep. Katrina Jackson, a Democrat, and passed overwhelmingly in the state’s House of Representatives and Senate in 2014 by a vote of 85-6 and 34-3, respectively.” In 2016, the Court ruled that a similar Texas law constituted an “undue burden” on access to abortion within the state. In addition to requiring admitting privileges, the Texas law also would have required abortion clinics to meet the same cleanliness and safety standards as ambulatory surgical centers. The case was argued and decided not long after Justice Antonin Scalia passed away, and Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Anthony Kennedy voted to strike down the Texas law in Whole Women’s Health v. Hellerstedt. One of Louisiana’s four abortion clinics challenged the new law. A federal district court, citing the Hellerstedt decision, held that the law advanced “minimal” health benefits while placing “substantial burdens” on women seeking an abortion. But there are a number of reasons why a…

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Weakley County Woman Charged with TennCare Fraud

Chris Butler

Authorities have charged a Weakley County woman with TennCare fraud. Officials with the Tennessee Office of Inspector General say the woman, Tina Mays, 44, of Gleason, fraudulently used the state’s health insurance program to obtain controlled substances, according to a state press release. The practice is otherwise known as doctor shopping. OIG officials, along with Madison County Sheriff’s officers, arrested Mays. They charged her with four counts of fraudulently using TennCare to visit multiple doctors to obtain prescriptions for the painkiller Hydrocodone, according to a press release. “Tennesseans won’t stand for TennCare resources to be used to fuel the opioid crisis,” Inspector General Kim Harmon said in the press release. “The Office of Inspector General works diligently with other state and local agencies to deter prescriptions being diverted to the streets.” TennCare fraud is a Class D felony carrying a sentence of up to four years in prison per charge.  District Attorney General Jody Pickens is prosecuting, according to the press release. State officials have made other TennCare fraud arrests of late. As The Tennessee Star reported this month, law enforcement officials have charged a Jefferson County woman with allegedly falsifying her income to obtain healthcare insurance through the state program. A…

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National Media Hit Klobuchar With More Reports of Running Abusive Office

Anthony Gockowski

It’s been just three days since Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) teased her upcoming “big announcement” and the national media have already released two damning reports about the Minnesota senator’s behavior toward her staffers. Earlier this week, Huffington Post reported that at least three people declined jobs on Klobuchar’s prospective presidential campaign because of her poor reputation with her staff. Now, Buzzfeed News has reviewed dozens of emails and spoken with anonymous ex-staffers to find that Klobuchar “ran a workplace controlled by fear, anger, and shame.” According to that report, Klobuchar “yelled, threw papers, and sometimes even hurled objects,” often leaving employees in tears. Klobuchar would allegedly berate employees in emails sent in the middle of the night over “minor mistakes, misunderstandings, and misplaced commas.” “Anything could set her temper off, they said, and it was often unpredictable. Among the things that staffers said had prompted outbursts from Klobuchar: minor grammar mistakes, the use of the word ‘community’ in press releases, forgetting to pack the proper coat in her suitcase, failing to charge her iPad, and using staples,” Buzzfeed News reports. One former staffer said that when she hears “the descriptors of our current president and how he lacks responsibility and…

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Second Amendment Advocacy Organization Wins Case Over Bump Stock Ban

Andrew Shirley

Friday, Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas Judge Robert Rhuehlman granted an injunction against an ordnance by the city of Cincinnati that would have made “trigger activators,” which are more commonly know as bump stocks, illegal in city limits. A bump stock is any device that uses “bump fire,” to increase the rate-of-fire of a semiautomatic weapon, and some revolvers. The device uses the natural recoil of the gun to permit the weapon to fire at a much higher rate. The ATF, led by appointees of the Obama Administration ruled in 2010 that these devices were legal and could be sold without regulation. Despite widespread availability and at relatively modest prices, they were not commonly adopted. This changed dramatically in 2017. On October 1st, 2017, a gunman opened fire in Las Vegas, Nevada, killing 58 people, wounding more than 400 with gunfire, and injuring 851. Upon investigation, it was found that he was utilizing bump stocks on several of his weapons. This propelled the otherwise innocuous firearm modification into the national spotlight. Overnight, demand for bump stocks spiked. Many progressive groups began calling for immediate bans. To many second amendment advocates, this appeared to be an overreaction by the federal government that infringed upon the second amendment.…

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Ohio Secretary of State: Redistricting Ohio Before 2020 Election Could ‘Hurt’ Voter Turnout

Andrew Shirley

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose stated on Thursday that he was against Ohio redrawing its district lines before the 2020 presidential election. It was a statement that surprised many, considering he made it at a voting rights forum, hosted by the Ohio League of Women Voters who are currently suing Ohio in the hope of having the state lines redrawn. As reported earlier, in May of 2018, several groups, led by the Ohio League of Women Voters formally filed suit against the Buckeye State, specifically noting; an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander that violates the First Amendment, the Fourteenth Amendment, and Article I of the United States Constitution….the most egregious gerrymanders in recent history. In his last days as Attorney General, Mike DeWine, who is currently serving as Ohio’s Governor, attempted to have the suit thrown out. The current Attorney General, Dave Yost, is now arguing to have the case delayed. The most effective argument made for the delay has been the United States Supreme Court’s January 4th announcement that it will hear two gerrymandering cases jointly, one from North Carolina and the other from Maryland. Any ruling made in this case would take precedence over the Ohio court’s decision. Last week, a similar gerrymandering case in…

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North Carolina Governor Jets Off To D.C. To Testify On Climate Change

A.P. Dillon

North Carolina Democratic Governor Roy Cooper went to Washington, D.C. this week to testify before a House Committee on Natural Resources about the impact of ‘Climate Change’. The carbon footprint of an economy class direct, roundtrip flight from Raleigh-Durham to Dulles airport is approximately 0.10 metric tons. Cooper’s testimony included pushing for reducing greenhouse gases and remarks in reference to natural disasters in North Carolina such as mudslides and hurricanes. Scientists have found that climate change makes weather more erratic. It makes storms larger and more powerful and it intensifies heavy rainfalls and droughts. We've seen it here in North Carolina. The time to address climate change is now. pic.twitter.com/MvRzlz3kCZ — Governor Roy Cooper (@NC_Governor) February 7, 2019 This is not Governor Cooper’s first foray into Climate Change. On October 29 of 2018, Cooper issued Executive Order 80 for the purpose of addressing climate change and to “transition” North Carolina to a “clean energy economy.” Cooper’s order calls for a 40 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2025 and for at least 80,000 zero-emission vehicles in the state. Just 12 days prior to Cooper’s Executive Order, the Environmental Protection Agency announced that U.S. greenhouse gas emissions had dropped by…

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Walz Faces Big Decision on Pipeline Project as Both Sides Mount Pressure

Anthony Gockowski

Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) has less than 20 days to make a decision on the highly controversial Enbridge Line 3 pipeline project, according to the Minnesota Court of Appeals. On February 5, the Minnesota Court of Appeals dismissed a last-minute appeal of the project made by former Gov. Mark Dayton’s (D-MN) Department of Commerce. The court has given Walz a 20-day window to refile the appeal or allow the project move forward. The court’s decision was mostly based on procedural reasons, saying the appeal was filed “prematurely” since it was made before the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) issued a final order for the project. Now, groups on both sides of the issue are pleading with Walz to support their cause. A group of bipartisan lawmakers sent a letter to Walz Friday morning urging him to support Line 3. “We strongly encourage you to support the project and direct state agencies to complete the permitting process that would allow this critically important project to move forward,” the letter states. “We believe after more than 3 ½ years of review and evaluation of the project by state and federal experts, 65 public meetings by state agencies, three weeks of evidentiary hearings by…

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Minnesota Republicans Introduce Bill to Ban Abortions After Fetal Heartbeat Is Detected

Anthony Gockowski

Minnesota’s Senate Republicans have introduced a bill that would ban abortions in the state after a fetal heartbeat is detected in a pregnant woman’s unborn child. Senate File (SF) 869 was introduced Thursday and is co-sponsored by five Republican state senators, including Sens. Andrew Mathews (R-Milaca), Mark Koran (R-North Branch), Justin Eichorn (R-Grand Rapids), Mary Kiffmeyer (R-Big Lake), and Michelle Benson (R-Ham Lake). “Except in the case of a medical emergency, a physician must first test a pregnant woman to determine if a fetal heartbeat is detectable in the pregnant woman’s unborn child before performing an abortion,” the bill states. “A physician shall not perform an abortion on a pregnant woman when it has been determined that the unborn child has a detectable fetal heartbeat, except in the case of a medical emergency.” If passed, violation of the bill would result in a gross misdemeanor punishable by “imprisonment for not more than one year or payment of a fine of not more than $3,000 or both.” Such bills are commonly referred to as “heartbeat bills” and have been introduced in several other state legislatures across the country. Ohio legislators, for instance, attempted to pass their own version of a heartbeat…

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Now Wilson County Commission Opposes School Vouchers

Chris Butler

Add Wilson County to the list of places whose local governments have written a formal resolution opposing school vouchers. Although, in this case, county commissioners may not have done so out of any strong conviction. They were merely passing along a message from the local school system to state legislators. According to the minutes of the Jan. 28 Wilson County Commission meeting, 21 commissioners voted in favor of the resolution. Two commissioners voted no. One commissioner abstained. Yet another commissioner was absent. Commissioner Robert Fields told The Tennessee Star Thursday that he and his colleagues acted because the county’s Board of Education requested it. “We voted to support the BOE’s resolution that they opposed any legislation that would support school vouchers,” Fields said. Fields voted in favor of the resolution, according to the minutes. The Star asked Fields if he and most county commissioners personally oppose school vouchers. “No, I think it (the vote) was more in support of our school’s board of education,” Fields said. A Board of Education representative spoke to commissioners that night. That person came without any statistics or empirical evidence and otherwise did not attest why school vouchers are bad, Fields said. Fields said he…

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