Day: February 17, 2019

Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation Employee Reportedly Removed for Misconduct

Chris Butler

Officials with the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation reportedly removed a deputy commissioner this week after investigating alleged workplace misconduct, according to the Nashville-based WSMV. That now former deputy commissioner, Brock Hill, was a political appointee under former Republican Gov. Bill Haslam. Hill oversaw Tennessee’s 56 state parks and 85 state natural areas. Hill was also the Cumberland County mayor for 16 years, according to The Chattanooga Times Free Press. Neither WSMV nor The Times Free Press elaborated as to why officials removed Hill. Anne Marshall will serve as interim Deputy Commissioner of Parks and Conservation, WSMV reported. This is not the first time people have accused TDEC officials of misconduct on the job. As the Nashville-based FOX 17 and Tennessee Watchdog reported in 2014, then-TDEC Commissioner Bob Martineau chartered a plane to Athens to give a brief speech. But to travel there in a vehicle would take no more than three hours. That flight cost taxpayers $1,517 dollars. Also as Tennessee Watchdog reported that year, one of TDEC’s deputy directors, Britton Dotson, scolded water quality inspectors in an email for supposedly not paying attention to their jobs. “There are a number of staff that can’t get everything done…

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Commentary: The False Promise of an ‘Ultramillionaire’ Tax

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by Dylan Pahman   Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is running for president in 2020, and she has gained attention for proposing an “ultramillionare” tax: a 2 percent tax on households with a net worth over $50 million and an additional 1 percent on households worth over $1 billion. Warren’s proposal has more popular support than Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-NY) proposal to raise the marginal income tax rate on top earners to 70 percent, according to FiveThirtyEight. Indeed, Warren’s proposal has support among a majority of Americans across the political spectrum according to recent polling. In practice, however, both proposals may turn out to be better at raising poll numbers for their advocates than revenue for the federal budget. Regarding Warren’s wealth tax, in particular, economist Timothy Taylor notes, when countries impose a wealth tax, they often typically create a lot of exemptions for certain kind of wealth that aren’t covered by the tax. Each of these exemptions has a reasonable-sounding basis. But every exception also creates a potential loophole. “Back in 1990,” according to Taylor, “12 high-income countries had wealth taxes. By 2017, that had dropped to four: France, Norway, Spain, and Switzerland.” Why? Because despite including a broader base of wealthy households…

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Huge Turnout at Williamson County GOP Victory Party

Tennessee Star Staff

FRANKLIN, Tennessee–A huge crowd turned out for the Williamson County GOP Victory Party held at the Cool Springs Marriott in Franklin on Saturday night. More than 300 people attended the event, which featured speeches from Rep. Mark Green (R-TN-07), Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives Glen Casada, and State Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson (R-Franklin), among others. Blackburn, Casada, and Johnson are all residents of Williamson County. Though not a resident of Williamson County, Green is a resident of the 7th Congressional District he represents in Congress, which includes much of Williamson County. The event’s success was a tribute to the organizational leadership of outgoing Williamson County Republican Party Chairman Debbie Deaver, a grassroots conservative leader who began her tenure with a stunning victory two years ago over a more established opponent in February 2017. Deaver’s victory was one of the first stories reported by The Tennessee Star, which launched just days before, on February 6, 2017. Musical entertainment for the event was provided by State Sen. Johnson and his band, the Austin Brothers.    

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Trump Was Sued Over His National Emergency Declaration in Less Than Six Hours

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by Kevin Daley   Public Citizen, a Washington-based consumer group, filed the first lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s national emergency declaration concerning the southern border Friday night. The complaint, lodged in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, says the president’s declaration violates the separation of powers principles because there is no emergency at the southern border justifying the invocation of extraordinary powers. “Every halfhearted and palpably fabricated rationale to justify claims of emergency has been thoroughly and embarrassingly debunked,” said Public Citizen president Robert Weissman. “Unauthorized immigration is not surging. Terrorists are not invading from Mexico. Illegal drug traffic is coming primarily through legal ports of entry, not open border areas.” The plaintiffs are three Texas landowners who were informed that the government will construct border barriers on their property. They are joined by the Frontera Audubon Society, an environmental group that operates a 15-acre nature preserve in the Rio Grande Valley. The landowners say they will lose the use of their property if the wall is built, and fear damage to their homes during the course of construction. The Frontera Audubon Society warns of lasting damage to a critical animal habitat and claims its members will…

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Report on Covington Students Finds ‘No Evidence’ of ‘Offensive or Racist Statements’

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by Rachel del Guidice   A report that examined the January encounter between students from Covington Catholic High School and a Native American activist near the Lincoln Memorial in Washington found “no evidence” of “offensive or racist statements.” “We see no evidence that students responded with any offensive or racist statements of their own,” the report dated Feb. 11 from Greater Cincinnati Investigation read. The report was commissioned by the Catholic Diocese of Covington, which is located in Kentucky. Nick Sandmann and other students of Covington, who were in Washington, D.C., to attend the March for Life in January, faced harsh criticism in mainstream and social media based on a video showing a portion of their encounter Jan. 18 with Nathan Phillips, 64, on the National Mall. “The immediate world-wide reaction to the initial video led almost everyone to believe that our students had initiated the incident and the perception of those few minutes of video became reality,” wrote Bishop Roger Foys of the Covington Diocese in a letter earlier this week. A report that examined the January encounter between students from Covington Catholic High School and a Native American activist near the Lincoln Memorial in Washington found “no evidence”…

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Last Defenders of Islamic State’s Caliphate Surrounded

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by Jeff Seldin   The last defenders of the Islamic State terror group’s self-proclaimed caliphate are surrounded in a small neighborhood in the eastern Syrian village of Baghuz, facing imminent defeat. The assessment Saturday, from a commander of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, follows days of slow and difficult fighting as IS fighters cling to an ever-shrinking sliver of land, pausing only for intermittent negotiations over a possible surrender. “In a very short time, we will spread the good tidings to the world of the military end of Daesh,” Jiya Furat, the SDF commander leading the final assault, told reporters during a news conference outside Baghuz. Furat said the self-proclaimed caliphate, which once covered large swaths of Syria and Iraq, had been reduced to an area covering no more than about 600 square meters, and that IS fighters were coming under fire from every direction. But efforts to finish off the final IS enclave have been slowed due to concerns about civilians, including the wives and children of the terror group’s fighters, trying to escape to safety. “There have been some lapses in the battle as we continue to see hundreds of civilians still attempting to flee,” coalition spokesman, Col.…

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Audit Finds Signs of Fraud in New Mexico House Race

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by Fred Lucas   An audit of absentee ballots suggests fraud may have occurred in one of the closest House races in the country, The Daily Signal has learned. Democrat Xochitl Torres Small squeaked by Republican Yvette Herrell in the final results of the Nov. 6 election. On election night, Herrell declared victory in the race to represent New Mexico’s 2nd Congressional District. But as more votes were counted, Torres Small secured the win. The roughly 3,500-vote victory for Torres Small—out of about 200,000 cast in the southern New Mexico district—relied heavily on absentee ballots from Doña Ana County, the largest county in the district, including the Las Cruces area. A new audit report obtained by The Daily Signal alleges a “concerted effort” to push for absentee votes where New Mexico voter ID laws are not enforced. It also points to potential fraud in applying for absentee ballots, and says a significant number of absentee ballots were time-stamped after the 7 p.m. deadline election night. The report was prepared for the losing Herrell campaign by Full Compliance Consulting LLC and Herrell campaign lawyer Carter B. Harrison. Herrell’s campaign is not contesting the outcome of the 2018 contest, but sought the…

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Hamblen County Under Investigation, Yet Again

Chris Butler

Tennessee Comptrollers are investigating the Hamblen County Trustee’s Office, according to a document they released this week — but they won’t talk specifics. Comptrollers would only say they are investigating the county’s Trustee Department. They said they will publish any findings in a future report. County Mayor Bill Brittain told The Tennessee Star Thursday he had no comment. “We have been advised not to discuss the situation further because it is an on-going investigation,” Brittain said in an emailed statement. Brittain attached a document to the email he sent The Star. The document was a letter from County Trustee John Baskette saying the investigation “relates to the timeliness of deposits made by the office.” “It is an ongoing investigation and no conclusions have been reached,” Baskette said. “The Trustee’s Office is fully cooperating with it.” This is not the first time Comptrollers have taken Hamblen County to task for alleged wrongdoing. As The Tennessee Watchdog reported in 2015, Ronald Brady, the county’s former solid waste director, allegedly took more than $227,000 from taxpayers and spent it on, among other things, a trip to Disney World. “Brady admitted to also using the money for other personal expenses, including service on his…

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Sen. Alexander Questions President Trump’s Emergency Declaration on Wall, While Experts Say He Has Constitution, Precedent on His Side

Jason M. Reynolds

President Donald Trump’s declaration of a national emergency to build the border wall was “unnecessary, unwise and inconsistent with the U.S. Constitution,” U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) said. Trump on Thursday evening declared a national emergency in the southern border crisis, The Tennessee Star reported. He signed a spending bill lacking the wall funds to avert a second government shutdown. Alexander is joined in his disapproval by none other than ultra-liberal U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA-43). Alexander criticized the president’s action in a press release Friday. He said: It is unnecessary because significant additional money already has been approved by Congress that he could spend on border security without declaring a national emergency. In fact, the president announced today that he would spend $3 billion of this additional funding to fund construction of the border wall. This $3 billion is in addition to the $22 billion Congress appropriated on Thursday for detention beds, technology, border patrol agents, ports of entry, replacing existing wall and 55 miles of new wall. It is unwise because if this president can declare a national emergency to build a wall, the next president can declare a national emergency to tear it down; or declare a climate change emergency to…

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Stacey Abrams Claims Voter Suppression Is Legal in the US

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by Jason Hopkins   Failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams claimed that voter suppression is legal throughout the country during her speech at the Democratic National Committee’s winter meeting. “Here’s the thing about voter suppression: Voter suppression is legal in the United States right now,” Abrams said Friday to a crowd of Democrats in Washington, D.C. “We’re used to fighting against enemies that are supposed to be unlawful, but the problem with a lot of what they do is they take legal actions and bastardize them and manipulate them until the rights they are supposed to protect are no longer visible.” The comments followed a consistent complaint Abrams has made since losing her gubernatorial bid to then-Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp in November. Kemp, a Republican, defeated Abrams by a margin of over 54,700 votes on Election Day, but Abrams maintains he was only able to do so by suppressing black and Democratic voters. During her speech to DNC members, Abrams backed up her claims by citing four black people in the state who waited a long time to vote. “What we do know is that in the state of Georgia, four black men and women stood in line…

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Commentary: 2020 Democrats to Run the Impossible Gamut of Past and Present

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by Jeffrey A. Rendall   It could easily be argued the greatest threat to President Donald Trump’s reelection chances next year is a sane, middle-of-the-road and likable Democrat opponent. Good luck finding one. As the party hubbub over Virginia’s trio of politically correct absconders (Governor Ralph Northam, Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax and Attorney General Mark Herring) demonstrated, there’s no easy way to meet the impossible lasting purity standards of today’s race/sex/gender/national origin/gender identity obsessed Democrat base. Tasteless and patently offensive but basically harmless blackface moments from the 80’s and a probably unprovable (in the criminal sense) he said/she said sexual assault claim from 2004 (there are others, too) are apparently enough to sidetrack any serious contenders for the Democrat elites’ favor in the Old Dominion and elsewhere. Unless you’re a Clinton. But that’s another story. Too bad, you chuckle, what comes around goes around, even for Democrats. Republicans and conservatives still smart from last fall’s open mic inquisition of now Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and the Democrats’ moment of reckoning couldn’t come fast enough for most of us — though Speaker Nancy Pelosi says what happens in Virginia stays there and Northam’s, Fairfax’s and Herring’s problems don’t translate to the national…

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Nashville Metro School System Reportedly Has More Morale Problems

Chris Butler

More problems are reportedly unfolding at the Metro Nashville School System, according to various reports. According to The Tennessean, more inquiries into Nashville’s school spending are likely. “Board member Amy Frogge said during a Tuesday night board meeting she has plans to craft a motion outlining next steps to address further allegations of misspending by Director Shawn Joseph’s administration,” the paper reported. Frogge, the paper went on to say, asked for an independent investigation. “While the Metro Audit investigation was able to debunk many of the numerous allegations of district misspending, it also left open some questions that Metro Auditor Mark Swann said weren’t part of his investigation,” the paper reported. The Nashville-based NewsChannel 5, quoting a confidential report, said the school system, under Schools Director Shawn Joseph “faces seriously low morale and other issues that threaten the district’s ability to keep qualified employees.” “The 11-page report, prepared by the Nashville law firm of Bone McAllester Norton, also warns that a key Human Resources official hired by Joseph is viewed as ‘extremely divisive, dismissive and, in their belief, incompetent,’” the station quoted the report as saying. “It suggests Sharon Pertiller either be terminated, transferred or retrained.” The law firm, according to the…

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Court Filing Shows Manafort Faces More Than 19 Years in Prison

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Paul Manafort, the one-time chairman of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, could spend more than 19 years in prison on tax and bank fraud charges, according to court papers filed Friday. Documents filed by special counsel Robert Mueller’s office reveal that Manafort faces the lengthiest prison term imposed in the Russia investigation if a federal judge agrees to it. It would also place the 69-year-old Manafort at serious risk of spending the rest of his life in prison. The potential sentence stems from Manafort’s conviction last year on eight felony charges that accused him of carrying out an elaborate scheme to conceal from tax authorities the millions of dollars he earned overseas from Ukrainian political consulting. It is one of two criminal cases pending against Manafort in which he faces prison time. Though Mueller’s office did not recommend a precise sentence for Manafort, prosecutors said they agreed with a calculation by federal probation officials that his crimes deserve a punishment of between 19 and 24 years. They also lay out in great detail for U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III how they say Manafort’s greed drove him to disregard American law. “In the end, Manafort acted for more than a decade…

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Group That Spent Millions to Help Elect Michigan’s New Governor Forced to Dissolve for Campaign Violations

Anthony Gockowski

A political group that helped elect Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) was recently required to pay a $37,500 and dissolve within 60 days after being found responsible for violating campaign finance laws. Whitmer’s own campaign committee was also found guilty of coordinating with Build a Better Michigan on advertisements, though it’s yet unclear what specific penalties it will face. According to Bridge Michigan, Democratic Secretary of State Joceyln Benson concluded that Build a Better Michigan engaged in “express advocacy” in certain advertisements rather than the “issue advocacy” the ads claimed to be. The specific examples cited by Benson in her letter to Build a Better Michigan’s attorney include the use of “candidate” in front of Whitmer’s name in one ad, and encouraging voters to take specific actions in another. “The closing line of both ads, ‘tell your legislators, let’s get it done,’ does not satisfy the above definition of ‘issue advocacy.’ At no point does the content of the ad take a position on a specific issue. Instead the ads clearly identified then-candidate Gretchen Whitmer by name as a candidate for the office of Governor, rendering them express advocacy,” Benson explains in a letter to attorney Graham Wilson. As such, the…

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Minnesota Union Calls for Taxing the Rich to Pay for ‘$4 Billion Infusion’ in Public Schools

Anthony Gockowski

One of Minnesota’s largest teachers unions wants to tax the state’s wealthiest residents to fund a “$4 billion infusion” for public schools over the next two years. Education Minnesota, which boasts a membership of 80,000, called a press conference at the Minnesota Capitol Friday to lay out its vision for fully funding public schools. “These stories remind us that inventive solutions to the challenges facing Minnesota schools cost money, and there’s a price paid in lost learning and burnt-out educators when our society neglects the schooling of its children,” Education Minnesota President Denise Specht told reporters Friday. She said her organization ran “the numbers on what it really means to fully fund K-12 public education,” and found that it would cost “$3.7 billion to $4.3 billion for the next biennium.” “That’s a lot of money. The government will need to raise revenue from the richest Minnesotans and corporations to pay for it, and we believe that the public is on our side,” Specht continued, citing a New York Times poll that found three out of four voters support higher taxes on the wealthy. “Why? It’s probably because the richest one-percent now own 40 percent of our country’s wealth, and the…

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Klobuchar Campaigns as the ‘Senator Next Door’ During First Stop in Wisconsin

Anthony Gockowski

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) made her first campaign stop Saturday morning in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, a state 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton skipped visiting. Klobuchar spoke to a crowd of about 300 supporters at SHIFT Cyclery and Coffee Bar where she repeated several themes from her announcement address, but also promised to bridge the rural-urban divide. “That was one of the points I wanted to make by coming to Eau Claire. Eau Claire is a place of a great university and education. It is also in the middle of a rural area,” she said, calling herself the “Senator next door.” Packed house ahead of @amyklobuchar’s first campaign stop at an Eau Claire bicycle and coffee shop pic.twitter.com/i9NiYm4W15 — Torey Van Oot (@toreyvanoot) February 16, 2019 “I came here because I am the ‘Senator next door’ and I will be traveling to every single state in the Midwest,” Klobuchar said, according to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, and touted her family’s roots in Wisconsin. “I am so pleased to be in Wisconsin, the state where my mother was born,” she said. “And my mother’s parents, actually, both came here from Switzerland. My grandma came here when she was three. And what do you…

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THEC REPORT: Tennessee Students Unprepared for College

Chris Butler
college students

A new report from the Tennessee Higher Education Commission (THEC) presented to the Legislature earlier this week has the education community scrambling to explain how, despite hundreds of millions of dollars in new spending over the past eight years, Tennessee schools are not adequately preparing college-bound students for college work. New state data reveals about half of Tennessee students enrolled in higher education during the 2016-2017 school year needed remedial classes in math or reading, or both, during their fist year of college. According to the THEC report, 46 percent of Tennessee high school graduates enrolled in state colleges or community colleges needed math remediation; 30 percent of enrollees needed reading remediation during their first year of college. Students must take remedial classes if they score 18 (out of a top score of 36) or below on an ACT subtest in math or reading. The disturbing data revealing the lack of readiness by college-bound students does not include Tennessee high school students that did not seek to pursue higher education opportunities. The percentages of those students who would need remedial work in math and reading after completing K-12 but did not enroll in Tennessee colleges and universities would almost certainly…

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