Day: February 19, 2019

Tennessee School Districts Fighting School Vouchers Turn in Lackluster Academic Results, State Figures Reveal

Chris Butler

The five school systems in Tennessee that have come out to formally oppose school vouchers haven’t exactly done that great of a job preparing students for college. This, according to statewide statistics members of the Tennessee Higher Education Commission reported last week. As The Tennessee Star reported, representatives from some of these school systems said they have higher academic standards than charter schools. About 67 percent of Madison County students who went off to college needed remedial math classes. Almost 45 percent of them need remedial reading, according to the figures. Exactly 62.7 percent of students coming out of Metro Nashville Public Schools, meanwhile, had to take a remedial math course. About 47 percent of those students needed a remedial reading class, according to statistics. Also in Nashville, 90 percent of students at Maplewood Comprehensive High School who went off to college needed remedial math. About 76 percent needed remedial reading courses. Almost 92 percent of students at White’s Creek Comprehensive High School needed remedial math, and 78 percent of them needed remedial reading. For Stratford Comprehensive High School, 88 percent needed remedial math courses. More than 73 percent of the students needed remedial reading. Christiane Buggs, who represents District…

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President Trump Handicaps His 2020 Democratic Opponents

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Kamala Harris had the best campaign roll-out. Amy Klobuchar’s snowy debut showed grit. Elizabeth Warren’s opening campaign video was a bit odd. Take it from an unlikely armchair pundit sizing up the 2020 Democratic field: President Donald Trump. In tweets, public remarks and private conversations, Trump is making clear he is closely following the campaign to challenge him on the ballot. Facing no serious primary opponent of his own — at least so far — Trump is establishing himself as an in-their-face observer of the Democratic Party’s nominating process — and no will be surprised to find that he’s not being coy about weighing in. Presidents traditionally ignore their potential opponents as long as possible to maintain their status as an incumbent floating above the contenders who are auditioning for a job they already inhabit. Not Trump. He’s eager to shape the debate, sow discord and help position himself for the general election. It’s just one more norm to shatter, and a risky bet that his acerbic politics will work to his advantage once again. This is the president whose 240-character blasts and penchant for insults made mincemeat of his 2016 Republican rivals. And Brad Parscale, Trump’s campaign manager, said…

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Commentary: Democrats Move from Crony Capitalism to Class Warfare

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by CHQ staff   Nothing illustrates how far Left the Democratic Party has moved than the reaction of the Democrats’ most popular and media savvy politicians to the news that Amazon was abandoning plans to build part of its East Coast headquarters in the New York city of Long Island City. The move will cause New York to lose the 25,000 jobs that were expected to be created as well as some $27 billion in tax revenue the online behemoth was expected to pay into the Empire State’s coffers over the next decade. Yet, as our friend Peter A. List at LaborUnionReport.com reported to his readers, three of the Democrats’ most popular politicians –Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez [NY-14], Sen. Elizabeth Warren [D-MA], and Sen. Bernie Sanders [I-VT] seemed happy with Amazon’s decision to not create the jobs in New York. “Amazon – one of the wealthiest companies on the planet – just walked away from billions in taxpayer bribes, all because some elected officials in New York aren’t sucking up to them enough,” Sen. Warren tweeted. ” How long will we allow giant corporations to hold our democracy hostage?” ” Anything is possible: today was the day a group of dedicated,…

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Rod Rosenstein Will Leave the Justice Department in Mid-March

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Rod Rosenstein

by Chuck Ross   Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein plans to leave the Justice Department in mid-March, agency officials told news outlets Monday. A Justice Department official said that Rosenstein’s departure is not related to a controversy surrounding his alleged offer to wear a wire during conversations with President Donald Trump, according to CNN. Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe claimed in an interview that aired Sunday that Rosenstein broached the idea of wearing a wire to the White House in May 2017, days after James Comey was fired as FBI director. McCabe also claimed that Rosenstein suggested using the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office. Rosenstein has disputed McCabe’s claims, saying that he was being sarcastic about wearing a wire. Rosenstein was reportedly planning to leave the Justice Department soon after William Barr’s confirmation as attorney general. Barr was confirmed by the Senate on Feb. 14. Rosenstein planned to remain in office to ensure a smooth transition from Matthew Whitaker, the former acting attorney general, to Barr. According to CNN, the Justice Department could announce a replacement for Rosenstein as soon as this week. Rosenstein appointed Robert Mueller special counsel on May 17, 2017, around a week after Comey’s firing. He oversaw the…

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Cutting Overreach, Regulations and Saving Taxpayers Billions: Andrew Wheeler’s EPA Picks Up Where Scott Pruitt Left Off

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by Mike Howell   The Senate will soon get a chance to put its stamp of approval on the great work of the Environmental Protection Agency under President Donald Trump. Andrew Wheeler, the current acting administrator, will soon be up for a vote to be confirmed as the EPA’s 15th administrator. He’s been serving as deputy administrator since April 2018 and acting administrator since Scott Pruitt resigned last July. Wheeler’s likely advance comes at a time when the Senate chamber – and the entire country – is debating the left’s radical Green New Deal proposal. The “Green Raw Deal,” as some have taken to calling it, aims to usher in enormously costly socialist policies in the name of environmental protection. Some of the proposals include the elimination of air travel, guaranteed income for those unwilling to work, and replacing every single building in America. It’s a fantasy wish list that screams government overreach. [ The liberal Left continue to push their radical agenda against American values. The good news is there is a solution. Find out more ] The proposals have been embraced by leading politicians on the far left, but mostly mocked in the mainstream as more details and analysis have emerged.…

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Analysis: Social Security Taxes and the ‘Gig Economy’

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by Edward Ring   It is fashionable to refer to the job market of the future as “the gig economy.” In this enlightened, technology enabled wonderland, everyone will be free to balance work and leisure as they see fit. When they want to earn more money, they get online, find a “gig,” and when the job’s performed the money flows into their checking account. Not quite the utopia of Galt’s Gulch, but tantalizingly closer. The problem with the “gig economy” is the troublesome intervention of reality. Tell an Uber driver who has two hungry children, a wife home with the flu (unable to “gig”), who makes $20 per hour and has no health insurance that he’s living in utopia. You may have to duck. In 2017, the opinion section of the New York Times ran a guest editorial that included a graphic entitled “Our Broken Economy, In One Simple Chart.” That chart was drawn from data gathered by a team of economists that included Thomas Piketty, author of the 2014 bestseller, Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Each dot on the chart below represents an income percentile. They form two lines, the grey line showing income growth by income percentile between 1946 and 1980, and the red…

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Tennessee Man Allegedly Pulled Gun On Sam’s Club Customer For Wearing MAGA Hat

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by Andrew Kerr   A Tennessee man faces a charge of first-degree wanton endangerment after allegedly pulling a gun on a Sam’s Club customer in Kentucky for wearing a Make America Great Again hat. James Phillips, 57 (pictured above), told police he made an obscene gesture with his finger towards Terry Pierce and his wife inside the store because they were wearing MAGA hats, according to a police citation obtained by WKNY. After Pierce returned the gesture, Phillips, who was wearing a veterans hat, “pulled a .40 caliber out and stuck it in my face, backed up and said, ‘It’s a good day for you to die,’” Pierce told 13 News. “I said, ‘Then pull the trigger. Put the gun down and fight me or pull the trigger. Whichever one you want,’” Pierce added. “And he backed up and he said it again, he said, ‘It’s a good day for you to die.’” Phillips then left the store and waited in the parking lot for his mother, who was still inside shopping, according to Pierce. “I went out the front of the store to confront him again and that’s when I got him in his car,” Pierce told 13 News. “He tried telling…

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President Trump Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

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Reuters   Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is not saying whether or not he nominated Donald Trump for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, but the question may be moot: the U.S. president has been put forward by others for the prestigious award. During a White House news conference on Friday, Trump said the Japanese premier had given him “the most beautiful copy” of a five-page nomination letter to the Norwegian Nobel Committee. Since then Abe has declined to say whether he had done so. Regardless, Trump has already been nominated by two Norwegian lawmakers. “We have nominated him of course for the positive developments on the Korean Peninsula,” Per-Willy Amundsen, who was Justice Minister in Prime Minister Erna Solberg’s Cabinet in 2016-2018, told Reuters. “It has been a very difficult situation and the tensions have since lowered and a lot of it is due to Trump’s unconventional diplomatic style,” he added. Amundsen, who is a member of the rightwing Progress Party, wrote a letter to the award committee together with his parliamentary colleague Christian Tybring-Gjedde, he said. The letter was submitted in June, immediately after a summit Trump held in Singapore with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un aimed at…

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St. Paul City Council Ordinance Would Ban Restaurants From Using Non-Biodegradable Containers

Anthony Gockowski

A new proposal being considered by the St. Paul City Council would outlaw non-biodegradable takeout containers in city restaurants by 2021. According to The Pioneer Press, the proposal was conceived by council member Mitra Nelson, who lamented the fact that “restaurants are putting a lot of packaging out there that isn’t compostable, isn’t recyclable, and it’s filling up our landfills.” The idea was first brought to the St. Paul City Council in 2017, but was tabled for future consideration. This time around, Nelson and her colleague Jane Prince plan to coordinate two years of outreach to small businesses to help implement the ban. Some ideas being considered include group purchasing of biodegradable containers, and grants provided through Ramsey County and Washington County to help businesses pay for the containers. But Liz Rammer, president and CEO of Hospitality Minnesota and the Minnesota Restaurant Association, opposes the idea. “We have concerns that the city of St. Paul has not addressed the significant cost increases that will impact small businesses through such a ban,” she said. As The Pioneer Press’ Fred Melo notes, the ban would be the latest in a number of ordinances affecting small businesses in the city, including: a $15…

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Minnesota Activist Groups Protest Trump’s ‘Fake National Emergency’ Across the State

Anthony Gockowski

Resistance groups across the state organized protests Monday against President Donald Trump’s national emergency declaration. The statewide protests were part of a national grassroots effort to oppose the president’s “fake national emergency.” According to USA Today, rallies took place all across the country, many of which were organized in conjunction with MoveOn.org. “We’re mobilizing rapid-response events on President’s Day against Trump’s fake crisis and racist deportation force and to stand with immigrant, Muslim, and black and brown communities to stop Trump’s dangerous and illegal power grab,” MoveOn.org explains. A map of events provided by MoveOn.org shows that at least five protests happened across Minnesota, including ones in the Twin Cities, Mankato, Rochester, Winona, and Alexandria. The Minnesota Sun found that these protests were organized by a somewhat covert protest group called “Indivisible Minnesota,” which consists of affiliate groups like “Indivisible MN-03” and “Indivisible St. Peter and Greater Mankato.” “If progressives are going to stop Trump, we must stand indivisibly opposed to him and the members of Congress who would do his bidding,” a Facebook description of Indivisible Minnesota states. One of Monday’s protests took place outside of Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s (D-MN) Minneapolis office, according to a statement from Indivisible MN-03.…

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Ohio Attorney General: Negligence Leaves One Patient to Rot at Whetstone Gardens and Care Center

Andrew Shirley

A Grand Jury in Franklin County has indicted seven nurses – formerly employed by Whetstone Gardens and Care Center in Columbus – on a litany of charges surrounding the mistreatment of multiple nursing home patients in 2017. Six employed nurses and one contracted nurse practitioner have been indicted on 34 separate changes. The charges include involuntary manslaughter, gross patient neglect, patient neglect, tampering with evidence, and forgery. The most extreme offense was a result of a patient developing “serious wounds on his body progressing to gangrenous and necrotic tissue.” This was a direct result of not maintaining the most basic levels of resident care.  The staff took no measure to address this and the resident died of septic shock shortly after developing these conditions. A second patient also suffered direct physical harm. To hide the negligence, the nursing staff “repeatedly” documented treatments that were never actually provided to the patients. In a public statement Attorney General Yost stated; This case goes to the heart of protecting the unprotected,…These victims were completely dependent on others for day-to-day care, which their families trusted Whetstone Gardens to provide. Instead of providing that care, evidence shows these nurses forced the victims to endure awful mistreatment and then lied about it. This…

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For North Carolina, The Border Wall Is a $2.5 Billion a Year State Emergency

A.P. Dillon

President Trump has declared the nation’s southern border a national emergency after Democrats on Capitol Hill refused to negotiate on building the border wall. The cost of not building the wall for the country is high – both in actual dollars and in criminal activity. It’s also staggeringly high for the states, in particular, California and battleground states like North Carolina. For these states, the annual cost is in the billions. The financial burden on the taxpayer is enormous and spans every area of possible spending from healthcare to education. In 2017, it was reported by the Federation for Immigration Reform that approximately 12.5 million illegal aliens and 4.2 million children of illegal aliens were costing taxpayers just under $135 billion a year. The report puts the cost of states of Texas, New Mexico, California, and Arizona to patrol their portions of the border at $490,780,000 annually. According to the Federation For Immigration Reform’s report, illegal aliens were only contributing around $18.9 million to the tax base, which when subtracted from the $135 million cost, leaves taxpayers on the hook for around $116 million. That translates to approximately $8,075 per illegal alien and citizen child prior to taxes paid, or…

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Ohio Detective Explains How Border Crisis Has Led To A Spike In Meth Overdose Deaths

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by Nick Givas   Ashtabula County Detective Taylor Cleveland appeared on “Fox & Friends” Monday to explain how the current border crisis has magnified Ohio’s methamphetamine problem. “It’s an economics problem. For years, Summit county in Akron and Ashtabula county east of Cleveland have led the state in meth labs. Traditionally that’s generally how people were producing meth in those two counties,” he said. “And the drug cartels in Mexico seized upon that demand problem up there in those two counties and realized that they could produce meth for cheaper, ship it in using already established distribution networks and logistics networks and make a higher profit selling it cheaper in those counties.” Cleveland said the drugs are hidden in legitimate parcels and smuggled across the border through legal ports of entry. “It’s placed in legitimate loads that are coming across. Meth is generally from Mexico diluted in some type of hydrocarbon solvent. Usually diesel fuel. You can place it in the tank of a truck that’s bringing tomatoes over across the border, drop off the legitimate load of tomatoes, and then make a pit stop to have that meth and diesel fuel pumped out and then shipped to a point north near the source city.” Cleveland…

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Tennessee Now Protects Transgender People, Per State Attorney General Herbert Slatery

Chris Butler

Tennessee now has a hate crime statute protecting transgender people, according to an opinion Republican state Attorney General Herbert Slatery issued earlier this month. Slatery wrote this opinion responding to a question from State Rep. Mike Stewart, D-Nashville. Tennessee’s statute protecting transgender people is the first such one in the South, according to The Tennessean. Slatery’s spokeswoman, Samantha Fisher, said Monday she had no comment. “We have nothing more to add to the opinion issued to Rep. Stewart February 8th which can be found on our website,” Fisher told The Tennessee Star. According to the state attorney general’s website, the end of that opinion says the following: For purposes of the hate-crime enhancement, a crime committed against a person because that person manifests a gender that is different than his or her biological gender at birth—i.e. a crime committed against a person because he or she is transgender—is thus necessarily committed because of, at least in part, the person’s gender. Members of the Family Action Council of Tennessee condemned Slatery’s opinion. According to Factn’s website, the organization fights for religious liberty. “In arriving at this conclusion, the attorney general ignored the fundamental canon of statutory construction that courts are ‘to…

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