Day: February 11, 2019

State Representative Bruce Griffey Appears Fox News’ ‘Ingraham Angle’ to Discuss Border Wall Funding

Laura Baigert

Friday night’s episode of Laura Ingraham’s The Ingraham Angle on Fox News Channel featured a segment with Tennessee Representative Bruce Griffey (R-Paris) regarding his bill to fund President Trump’s southern border wall. Laura Ingraham’s television interview with the freshman legislator came two days after she tweeted about the bill, as reported by The Tennessee Star. Griffey’s bill HB 0562 is being sponsored in the Tennessee Senate by Joey Hensley (R-Hohenwald) as SB 1504. In her introduction prior to the break, Ingraham said, “We have highlighted a number of inventive funding ideas to help build that wall over the last several months. Well, up next is a Tennessee lawmaker who says that he’s figured it out.” Ingraham continued after the break, “Tennessee Representative Bruce Griffey filed legislation earlier this week that would establish a fee imposed on customers for transmitting money through certain entities. Well, that’s a mouthful.” Explaining further, Ingraham said “Basically, what this does is require a levy on money transfers from Tennessee to Mexico and then set aside those fees collected for the border wall.” Ingraham noted that Arizona, Montana and West Virginia are currently or have previously considered similar proposals. Ingraham asked Griffey if his proposal could…

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Ilhan Omar Faces Widespread Condemnation for Using Anti-Semitic Tropes

Anthony Gockowski

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN-05) is once again facing backlash for multiple anti-Semitic tweets in which she suggested that Jewish money is responsible for bipartisan support of Israel. In response to journalist Glenn Greenwald’s claim that “it’s stunning how much time U.S. political leaders spend defending a foreign nation even if it means attacking free speech rights of Americans,” Omar suggested that it’s “all about the Benjamins baby.” https://twitter.com/IlhanMN/status/1094747501578633216 Then, when another journalist said she would “love to know who [Omar] thinks is paying American politicians to be pro-Israel,” Omar responded by exclaiming, “AIPAC,” which stands for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. https://twitter.com/IlhanMN/status/1094761790595088384 Her tweets were later condemned by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, as well as several Jewish organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). “As Americans and Jews, we expect our politicians to condemn bigotry, not to fuel it. Words matter. At a time when anti-Semitism is on the rise in the U.S. and abroad, Rep. Omar is promoting the ugly, anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that Jews have an outsized influence over politics,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO and national director of ADL. “The notion that wealthy Jews are controlling the government is a longstanding anti-Semitic trope and one…

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Commentary: The Truth About Border Walls’ Effectiveness

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by Peter Parisi   “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion but not to his own facts.” That pithy observation is attributed to the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who served in the Senate from 1977 to 2001. The final two years of Moynihan’s stint in the Senate overlapped the first two years of that of his fellow New York Democrat, Sen. Charles Schumer. President Donald Trump, at a rally set for Monday night on the border in El Paso, Texas, should remind Schumer of Moynihan’s maxim in their fight over the need for more walls and fencing along the U.S.-Mexican border to help stem the flood tide of illegal immigration. [ The liberal Left continue to push their radical agenda against American values. The good news is there is a solution. Find out more ] Schumer and his House counterpart, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., are entitled to their opinions about Trump’s proposed border wall, but they aren’t entitled to their own facts. In their rebuttal to the president’s Jan. 9 nationally televised address outlining the need for a border barrier and his request for $5.7 billion in funding for them, both described the proposed wall as “ineffective” – Pelosi once and Schumer twice. In her…

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Anthony Kennedy Says Loss Of Decency Is a Threat to Democracy

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by Kevin Daley   Retired Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy warned university students that democracy is endangered by the decline of free and open civic debate. “We have a social framework of decency that we’re very quickly losing,” Kennedy said, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, which was on hand during the recent event at the UC Hastings College of Law. Without that framework, he explained, free societies cannot endure. Elsewhere in his remarks, the justice bemoaned the “egocentrism that the cyber age has brought us.” “Our young people in the cyber age don’t think the past is important,” Kennedy said. “If it’s not on your screen, it’s not important.” The importance of civil, wide-ranging discourse was a major touchstones of Kennedy’s jurisprudence during his tenure on the Supreme Court. Even in closely-divided cases touching hot social controversies, the justice emphasized the respect due to all parties and extolled the virtue of free expression. Perhaps the most significant of Kennedy’s opinions was the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges ruling, which established the constitutional right to same-sex marriage. There he repeatedly argued that the decision’s detractors had good faith objections to same-sex unions which should be aired in a respectful exchange of views. “Many…

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Dr. Carol M. Swain Commentary: Shouting your Abortion is a Desperate Cry for Help

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by Dr. Carol M. Swain   Last month marked the 46th anniversary of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, two landmark Supreme Court decisions that legalized abortion in all 50 states. Since the legalization of abortion, more than 60 million unborn babies have been aborted. One of those babies was mine. More than 40 years ago, I made the decision to terminate a pregnancy without understanding the long-term consequences, both physical and emotional, that would ensue. Now, there’s a new grassroots movement to Shout Your Abortion. There is nothing wrong with publicly sharing one’s abortion in appropriate forums; however, celebration is inappropriate for an action with long-term health consequences and no lack of lasting relief from the guilt many men and women suffer. As someone who cares about other women, I cannot shout my abortion in a celebratory manner. What I can do is share with readers a bit about my own experiences. I also can discuss what I have learned through research and listening to the stories of women who regret taking the lives of their unborn children, but have found healing and meaning by sharing their unique experiences. Shout Your Abortion Shout Your Abortion is an imitation of healing work that some Christian churches and ministries have been doing…

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US Facing Friday Deadline to Avert New Government Shutdown

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The federal government is facing a Friday deadline for funding about a quarter of its operations, struggling to avert another shutdown after a record 35-day closure was ended last month. Construction money for a barrier at the U.S. southern border with Mexico remains at the center of the dispute, with President Donald Trump asking for $5.7 billion in funding and opposition Democrats apparently ready to offer some money, but much less than the president wants. Several lawmakers said late last week they were close to reaching a deal, even as it remained unclear what Trump would agree to. But on Sunday, Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the lead Republican on a 17-member congressional panel trying to reach agreement on border security funding, told Fox News, “I think the talks are stalled right now. I’m not confident we’re going to get there.” Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney told NBC News another shutdown “absolutely cannot” be ruled out. He said whether lawmakers are close to reaching a deal on border security funding “depends on who you listen to.” Mulvaney added, “The president really does believe that there is a national security crisis and a humanitarian crisis at the border…

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Shelby County Taxpayers Lose Out Again, This Time with Unlicensed Psychologist

Chris Butler

Hundreds of Shelby County sheriff’s deputies must be retested after it was discovered an unlicensed psychologist administered mental evaluations to them, according to localmemphis.com “The Local I-Team uncovered state law changed several years ago, and it appears no one in Shelby County or at the state noticed until now,” the station reported. “Shelby County taxpayers have already paid once for these employees to get mental evaluations, and now you are paying again. Dr. Charles Kenny’s psychologist license lapsed in 2001.Since 2013, he worked under the supervision of licensed psychologist Dr.  John Johnson. The Tennessee state board that oversees law enforcement told Shelby County that was improper,” localmemphis.com reported. “The Local I -Team uncovered when Kenny first began doing the psych evaluations for Shelby County, the Tennessee state law only required the person signing off on the officer’s mental evaluation was ‘a qualified professional in the psychiatric or psychological field,’” the station reported. The law changed in 2015. It now says the officer has to be certified by “a Tennessee licensed health care provider qualified in the psychiatric or psychological field.” The station said “either no one at Shelby County knew the law had changed or the folks in Nashville had a change of…

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Commentary: Mass Immigration and Climate Change Doublethink

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by Quentin Borges-Silva   Doublethink, as articulated by George Orwell in 1984, “means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.” Unfortunately, the modern left takes Orwell’s book not as the warning it was intended to be, but as an instruction manual. Perhaps nowhere else is doublethink more readily apparent than in the absurdly conflicted intersection of leftist environmentalism – think of it as ecological conservation with a pagan streak – and support for mass immigration. Climate change true believers have perfect faith in the notion that the human contribution of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere is the primary driver of global warming, and that only by drastically reducing that contribution can we avoid apocalyptic climate tragedy on a global scale. But when a grand imam of the Climate Change faith, Michael Mann, is called “A Disgrace to the Profession” and many other unflattering things by dozens of his equally credentialed peers, perhaps they are onto something. When recipients of tens of millions of dollars in federal climate research grants ask the Department of Justice to arrest, prosecute, and imprison those who question their data quality, analysis, and conclusions, it’s a fair bet they’re up to something,…

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Audit: Claiborne County Officials Sold Scrap Metal Illegally

Chris Butler

Claiborne County sheriff’s officers and county inmates sold scrap metal to a private vendor for personal gain while on litter patrol and got more than $20,000 for it, according to an audit Comptrollers released Friday. That’s against Tennessee law. Investigators reviewed records from July 1, 2016 through June 30 of last year, the audit said. “Sheriff’s litter patrol officers and inmates told investigators it was a long-established practice for the litter patrol to gather scrap metal from county convenience centers, road rights-of-way, and residents’ property, and sell the scrap metal to buy inmates on litter patrol lunches, snacks, drinks, and tobacco products,” auditors wrote. “We could not locate and interview all prior inmates who worked on litter patrol about this practice; therefore, we could not verify the exact amount of cash that was received and how it was always used. The scrap metal vendor kept records of most litter patrol transactions, listing the names of the inmates and sheriff’s litter patrol officers that received cash from the sales.” Comptrollers said they determined cash transactions often occurred several times a week and ranged in amounts from $2.10 to $385.70. “According to inmates and sheriff’s officers interviewed, usually one inmate would collect…

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Spring Hill Might Ban Vaping in Parks

Chris Butler

Spring Hill officials will consider a new proposed ordinance to ban the use of vape pens and similar alternative-smoking devices in Spring Hill public parks, according to The Columbia Daily Herald. “The ordinance will take two readings before it can be passed, meaning March would be the earliest it could take effect. There is no current state law prohibiting the use of vaping pens, although some cities like Franklin are looking into pursuing similar measures. Smoking cigarettes in public parks was officially banned statewide in 2007 under former Gov. Phil Bredesen,” according to the paper. “The aldermen seemed split Monday on their opinions regarding vaping in public parks. Some saw the potential dangers of second hand smoke, while others believe it is a healthy alternative to quitting smoking and doesn’t carry the same cancer-causing carcinogens as cigarette smoke.” The city’s Parks and Recreation Department submitted the ordinance, according to The Daily Herald. Alderman Amy Wurth said problems with smoking in public parks causes cigarette butts and other harm, including trash. She asked what is behind the proposed ban on vaping. Alderman Jeff Graves, who chairs parks and rec, said some residents had complained about vaping. “Vice Mayor Bruce Hull said…

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Berkeley University Suspends New Research Projects with Chinese Telecom Giant Huawei

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One of the world’s top research universities, the University of California, Berkeley, has stopped new research projects with Huawei Technologies, the embattled Chinese telecommunications giant. The university’s suspension, which took effect on January 30, came after the U.S. Department of Justice filed criminal charges against the corporation and some of its affiliates two days earlier. The department announced a 13-count indictment against Huawei, accusing it of stealing trade secrets, obstruction of justice, violations of economic sanctions and wire fraud. Vice Chancellor for Research Randy Katz said in a letter addressed to the Chancellor’s cabinet members the campus would continue to honor existing commitments with Huawei that provide funding for current research projects. Huawei’s chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, has been under house arrest in Canada since December 1 for allegedly deceiving U.S. banks into clearing funds for a subsidiary that interacted with Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions. Her extradition to the U.S. is pending. Meng’s arrest has prompted some observers to question whether her detention was an attempt to pressure China in its ongoing trade war with the U.S. She is the daughter of the corporation’s founder, a relationship that places her among the most influential corporate executives in…

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2020 Presidential Hopeful John Kasich Posts Video Announcing First Yoga Class; Draws Mixed Response

Andrew Shirley

Every politician attempts to be relatable; very few succeed. Erstwhile governor and 2020 presidential hopeful John Kasich posted a video on Saturday, announcing that he had just completed his first day of yoga lessons with his wife, Karen Kasich. He summarized the exercises briefly then discussed the importance of remaining young-minded and looking towards the future. The 66-year-old former Governor of Ohio has never been known for these types of videos or topics and, as such, it drew a significant response. While many of the posts were supportive of his efforts, the consensus seems to be that it has an unflattering resemblance to another 2020 candidates attempt at relatability. On New Year’s Eve, Democratic presidential primary candidate, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren posted a brief video to Instagram in which she said “I’m gonna get myself a beer,” with her husband and promptly had one. The moment felt so disingenuous, awkward, and contrived that even progressive outlets, that have a history of defending her, lampooned the obvious stunt. The most popular comment in response to Kasich’s video made a direct reference to it. Not exactly Elizabeth Warren's drink a beer moment but just as obviously shallow…. — brockasso (@itsmebrock) February 10, 2019 Kasich may also…

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Booker Focuses on Race Relations in Initial 2020 White House Swing

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Reuters   U.S. Senator Cory Booker made the nation’s complicated history with race relations and racial disparities a focal point at events in the key state of Iowa during his first 2020 presidential campaign swing over the weekend. Booker, 49, a former Democratic mayor of Newark, New Jersey, frequently discussed incarceration and employment disparities, while also telling his parents’ story of trying to buy a house in an unintegrated New Jersey suburb in the late 1960s with the help of a volunteer civil rights lawyer. Booker’s focus was an overture to the coalition of young, diverse voters that twice elected former Democratic President Barack Obama, while also differentiating his style from that of the first black U.S. president, who rarely discussed race during his campaign. Booker’s emphasis on his personal and mayoral past, as well as his work as a senator on criminal justice issues, may also set him apart in a crowded field of Democratic candidates aiming to take on Republican President Donald Trump in what could be an historic election. There are already four Democratic candidates vying to be the country’s first woman president, including U.S. Senator Kamala Harris, a former top prosecutor in the city of San…

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Emails: Jake Tapper Tore Into ‘Irresponsible’ BuzzFeed Editor for Publishing the ‘Steele Dossier’

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by Chuck Ross   After BuzzFeed published the infamous Steele dossier, CNN anchor Jake Tapper lit into BuzzFeed editor Ben Smith for the decision, calling it “irresponsible” and “uncollegial,” according to emails released Friday. “I think your move makes the story less serious and credible[.] I think you damaged its impact,” Tapper wrote to Smith on Jan. 10, 2017, just after BuzzFeed published the dossier in full on its website. The emails were released in response to a federal judge’s order to unseal documents from a lawsuit against BuzzFeed, which was sued in February 2017 by a Russian businessman who was accused in the dossier of being a Russian agent. Lawyers for the Russian, Aleksej Gubarev, picked out the Tapper-Smith exchange in hopes of showing BuzzFeed failed to do its due diligence before publishing the dossier, which was funded by Democrats and compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele. BuzzFeed noted in its initial report that the dossier remained unverified. Smith defended the decision to publish the document on the grounds that numerous policymakers, government officials and journalists were aware of its salacious rumors, which included that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government to win the 2016 election. Tapper was seemingly upset…

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Harvard Moves To Dismiss Legal Challenges To Single-Gender Social Group Restrictions

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by Neetu Chandak   Harvard University announced Friday that it would move to dismiss complaints about a rule that punishes students in single-gender clubs from holding leadership positions on sports teams and campus groups. The single-gender policy, announced May 6, 2016, would give a certain set of extracurricular opportunities “to students whose decisions reflect the University’s aspirations for inclusivity,” Harvard said in its dismissal filings, obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation over email. The rule went into effect for students entering the school in the Fall 2017 semester. Delta Gamma Fraternity Management Corporation, Alpha Phi, and Cambridge’s Alpha Phi chapter sued Harvard at the state level while Kappa Alpha Theta sorority, Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority, Sigma Chi fraternity, Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, Sigma Alpha Epsilon chapter in Cambridge and three Harvard male students were plaintiffs in the federal suit. The lawsuits were filed on Dec. 3, 2018, according to a press statement from the North American Interfraternity Conference (NAIC). The state level lawsuit focused on “right to free association and equal treatment based on sex” and the federal suit questioned the policy’s commitment to “freedom from sex discrimination,” The Boston Globe reported. Harvard said in its federal filing on Friday that the rule…

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Klobuchar Lays Out Vision for the White House: ‘It’s Time, America’

Anthony Gockowski

MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota–Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) officially declared her candidacy for President of the United States Sunday during a snowy rally on the banks of the Mississippi River in Minneapolis. Several of her Minnesotan colleagues spoke before her, including Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan (D-MN) and Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN). Klobuchar’s Senate counterpart, Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN), touted Klobuchar’s record of supporting Planned Parenthood, and criticized Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh for his alleged failure to adequately address Klobuchar’s line of questioning during his confirmation process. Prince, naturally, was invoked several times throughout the event and one of his former collaborators, DJ Dudley D, emceed the occasion. https://twitter.com/AGockowski/status/1094671348801175552 “Hey, if Prince could do that halftime show in all that rain, I can do this in this snow,” Klobuchar joked. Despite the blizzard-like conditions, Klobuchar managed to attract a massive crowd that was estimated at around 9,000 people. She began her address by thanking her “amazing and incredible team and staff for putting this together.” Leading up to her announcement, Buzzfeed News and Huffington Post released separate reports detailing Klobuchar’s abusive behavior toward her staff, which included claims that she “yelled, threw papers, and sometimes even hurled objects.” Klobuchar’s speech “We are gathered…

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Virginia Governor Holds Firm, Will Not Quit Over Blackface Scandal

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Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam said Sunday he has no intention of resigning, despite widespread calls for him to quit because of a racist picture on his personal page in a 1984 medical school yearbook and his use of black face to depict a pop music star. “I have thought about resigning, but I’ve also thought about what Virginia needs right now,” Northam told CBS News. “And I really think that I’m in a position where I can take Virginia to the next level. Virginia also needs someone who is strong, who has empathy, who has courage and who has a moral compass. And that’s why I’m not going anywhere.” Northam, a trained physician, added, “I’ve been in some very difficult situations. Life and death situations taking care of sick children. And right now Virginia needs someone that can heal. There’s no better person to do that than a doctor.” Northam is one of three officials, all Democrats, at the top of the government in Virginia, an Atlantic coastal state, currently engulfed in controversy. Two women have accused the state’s No. 2 official, Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, of sexually assaulting them more than a decade ago, allegations he rejects, while the…

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Google Parent Company to Open Treatment Center in Dayton, Ohio

Andrew Shirley

Alphabet Inc., the multinational conglomerate that both was established by and currently owns Google.com, has announced that they will be establishing an opioid treatment center in Dayton, Ohio. While this could be good news for a community that is still deeply in the midst of an opioid epidemic, the recent revelations about data collection by Google and other digital tech companies raise questions about the new treatment center. The effort, dubbed OneFifteen, will be headed by Andy Conrad, Ph.D. (pictured above) and housed in a new “tech enabled campus.” It will be an initiative of Verily, the development wing of Alphabet that deals with life sciences. The new facility was announced Wednesday in a blog post on the company website. The post points out the alarming statistics regarding opioid abuse and the intent of this new campus to treat these problems. It also explicitly notes that one of the biggest challenges to healthcare is a severe lack of data, most notably the data gaps. While this is undoubtedly accurate, there are many concerns with greater data aggregation. In recent years, data companies have proven themselves to be at best wildly irresponsible and at worst explicitly malicious in aggregating and then selling the personal data of individuals. The notion of this…

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ICE To NC Sheriff’s Refusing Illegal Alien Detainers: Raids Will Be The ‘New Normal’

A.P. Dillon

The Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) announced they will be stepping up raids on illegal aliens in North Carolina. According to WBTV, ICE Atlanta field office Director Sean Gallagher said that sheriff’s in the areas with policies allowing illegal aliens to go free without notifying ICE should consider these raids to be the ‘new normal’. Recent raids by ICE in the Raleigh-Durham area has netted close to 200 arrests. WBTV reported that the recent raids include 50 suspects with criminal convictions, 40 suspects with pending criminal charges, and 50 who were previously deported but had re-entered the U.S. illegally. The increased activity by ICE in the Tarheel state is a direct response to response to sheriff’s from Durham, Orange, Wake, and Mecklenburg counties refusing to comply with the 287g Program which requires placing detainers on illegal aliens who are arrested. “Residents should expect a more visible ICE presence in the Raleigh-Durham area,” said ICE’s Gallagher. “ICE will now have no choice but to conduct more at large arrests in local neighborhoods and at work sites, which will inevitably result in additional collateral arrests instead of arrests at the jail where enforcement is safer for…

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Bill Lee Joins ‘Career Technical Education Day’ Celebration in Sumner County

Laura Baigert

GALLATIN, Tennessee – Governor Bill Lee came to Sumner County to celebrate Career Technical Education Day, part of the larger recognition of the national CTE month of February. The event was held at the Bagsby Ranch, where Lee held a town hall on July 25, 2018, when there were still three days of early voting in the Republican primary before the August 2 election day. Reflecting on that day with its big crowd, the Governor said, “As we pulled in here today, I said it sure does feel different. A whole level of peace and calm,” adding, with a bit of levity, “I don’t gotta talk y’all into anything.” Attendees of the CTE Day event included Director of Sumner County Schools Del Phillips, several school board members, State Representatives William Lamberth (R-Cottontown) and Johnny Garrett (R-Goodlettsville), Compass (Community Outreach Making Partnerships At Sumner Schools) members, several elected officials as well as Sumner County Schools CTE educators and students. As Governor Lee was introduced, he was presented with two gifts made by students of local CTE programs. While the Governor said he talks a lot about CTE, he painted a broader picture when he said he also talks about vocational technical…

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