Tennessee General Assembly Approves Legislation Eliminating Professional Privilege Tax

The Tennessee General Assembly this week passed major tax cut legislation, eliminating the $400 professional privilege tax levied on licensed individuals annually in 15 professions in Tennessee. This, according to a press release legislators sent out this week. Senate Bill 398, sponsored by Senator Brian Kelsey, R-Germantown, repeals the tax for accountants, architects, sports agents, audiologists, chiropractors, dentists, engineers, landscape architects, optometrists, pharmacists, podiatrists, psychologists, real estate brokers, speech pathologists, and veterinarians. “The idea that earning a living is a privilege is insulting to hardworking Tennesseans,” the press release quoted Kelsey as saying. “For many years, this tax has unfairly singled out individuals in 22 of the state’s 100 licensed professions by taxing them for the so-called ‘privilege’ of earning a living.  I am very pleased that it will end for the majority of these taxpayers.” Action on the legislation comes after a 2016 Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations report said some professions in the state that are not taxed have higher average incomes.  The report also noted that incomes of professionals vary significantly within the taxed professions and those in occupations earning lower salaries, pay the same amount as those earning more.  Professionals in these areas must pay…

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Commentary: A Lame Case for Diversity

by Charles Geshekter   Abigail Stewart and Virginia Valian are senior psychologists at the University of Michigan and Hunter College, respectively. As an opponent of group preferences and double standards to achieve diversity among university faculty, I read their book, An Inclusive Academy, hoping to learn something from people with whom I disagreed. This study confirms the tenacity of diversity activists and bureaucrats whose “numbers game” continues to embroil universities. For any contemporary campus, the authors find so much diversity to consider to achieve genuine inclusivity—“race and ethnicity, gender, sexuality, rank, ability status, age, dependent care demands, partner status, health, and more.” Even more? Since the late 1960s, what began as equitable outreach programs (or affirmative action) hardened into demands for equality of outcomes. By the 1990s, diversity had become synonymous with racial or ethnic preferences. It referred to a growing list of groups that a burgeoning administrative elite identifies as deserving special treatment. As defenders of diversity, Stewart and Valian want universities to use race-conscious profiling as a way to fight racism. By permitting preferences in order to combat discrimination, their illiberal justifications undermine the norms of academic focus, disregard disciplinary specialization, encourage mediocrity, and foster cynicism. Diversity advocates insist…

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‘He’s Trying to Grab Trump’s Attention’: North Korea Test Fires ‘Projectiles’ Into the Sea

by Tim Pearce   North Korea fired several unidentified short-range weapons off the country’s east coast into the Sea of Japan on Saturday morning, according to South Korea’s Defense Ministry. South Korea said the projectiles were launched shortly after 9 a.m. local time and flew 70 to 200 kilometers before crashing into the sea, The Associated Press reported. U.S. and South Korean defense officials are investigating the launch of the “projectiles,” the latest weapons test by North Korea as negotiations with the U.S. to denuclearize the East Asian country stall. National security adviser John Bolton briefed President Donald Trump Friday night, a senior administration official told The Wall Street Journal. “Anything in this very interesting world is possible, but I believe that Kim Jong Un fully realizes the great economic potential of North Korea, & will do nothing to interfere or end it. He also knows that I am with him & does not want to break his promise to me. Deal will happen!” Trump tweeted Saturday. Anything in this very interesting world is possible, but I believe that Kim Jong Un fully realizes the great economic potential of North Korea, & will do nothing to interfere or end it.…

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Pentagon Warns of Chinese Military Spying

  China’s two decades of military modernization has paid off begin missile development and domains like cyber and space, but the Pentagon says China is still relying on spying on others to steal the latest military technology. “China uses a variety of methods to acquire foreign military and dual-use technologies, including targeted foreign direct investment, cyber theft, and exploitation of private Chinese nationals’ access to these technologies, as well as … computer intrusions and other illicit approaches,” according to a congressionally mandated Pentagon report released Thursday. Randall Schriver, the assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs, told reporters Friday at the Pentagon that China frequently uses tactics that fall just short of armed conflict to reach its goal of becoming a “world-class military by 2049,” from threats and coercion against media and academia to jamming systems against ships in international waters in the South China Sea. The report said China has used these illicit approaches to acquire military-grade technologies from the United States that ranged from antisubmarine to aviation equipment. He said the Chinese were “very aggressive” with modernization and had made “significant progress” in their ballistic and cruise missile development, but he stopped short of calling Beijing an…

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Vote Fraud Charges Endanger Texas Mayor, Topple Another in NJ

by Fred Lucas   In a tale of two city mayors arrested last week on vote fraud charges, one resigned while the other says a jury will decide. Edinburg, Texas, Mayor Richard Molina doesn’t plan to go anywhere. Molina won the mayor’s race in November 2017 by 1,240 votes. But on April 25, Texas Rangers arrested the mayor and his wife, Dalia, alleging the couple ran a vote fraud scheme to put him in office. After about a week of silence, the mayor said Thursday the charges won’t affect his job, and asked Edinburg residents to respect his constitutional rights to due process. “We respectfully deny any criminal wrongdoing and look forward to defending ourselves in the proper venue. That is a courtroom,” Molina said in the video statement. “These charges will not affect my ability to perform the people’s work as your mayor. I only ask that you respect our constitutional right to a fair trial and due process.” Prosecutors allege the Edinburg mayor and his wife had numerous voters change their address to places they didn’t live, including an apartment complex the mayor owns, so they could vote for him in the Nov. 7, 2017, race. Those who…

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Country House Wins Kentucky Derby via Disqualification

  Maximum Security led all the way in the Kentucky Derby on Saturday, only to become the first winner disqualified for interference in the race’s 145-year history. After a long wait, long shot Country House was declared the winner. Country House, a 65-1 shot, finished second in the slop before an objection was raised, causing a lengthy delay while stewards repeatedly reviewed several angles of video footage. The stunning outcome gave Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott his first Derby victory at age 65. Jockey Flavien Prat, who originated the claim of foul, also won his first Derby. Country House paid $132.40 to win — the second-highest payout in Derby history. It was a crushing turn of events for trainer Jason Servis and jockey Luis Saez, who already had begun celebrating what they thought were their first Derby victories. Instead, Maximum Security was dropped to 17th of 19 horses. The colt was the 9-2 second choice in the wagering. Prat claimed that Maximum Security ducked out in the final turn and forced several horses to steady. War of Will came perilously close to clipping heels with Maximum Security, which could have caused a chain-reaction accident. The stewards reviewed race footage…

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10-Month-Old Baby Dies After Migrant Raft Capsized in Rio Grande

by Jason Hopkins   Authorities found the body of a 10-month-old baby after a raft he was on capsized, spilling him and eight other migrants into the cold, dangerous waters of the Rio Grande river. At around 9:45 p.m. Wednesday night, Border Patrol agents working in the Eagle Pass Station encountered a man who unlawfully entered the United States, according to a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) press release. Upon apprehension, the man informed agents he had been traveling on a rubber raft carrying nine migrants that tipped over in the Rio Grande. The man’s wife, 10-month-old and 6-year-old sons, and 7-year-old nephew were among those on the raft. Border Patrol immediately began a search operation for the missing migrants. Cries from afar brought agents to the riverbank, where a woman and a child were seen struggling to float in the water. “Disregarding his own personal safety, an agent jumped into the river and successfully rescued both individuals later identified as the wife and child of the man who made the initial report,” the CBP statement read. Border Patrol Emergency Medical Personnel treated the 6-year-old boy on site and later rushed him to a hospital for more treatment. Shortly afterward,…

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Nearly 40 Percent of Guatemalans Want to Leave the Country, Poll Finds

by Jason Hopkins   A poll by one of Guatemala’s largest newspapers found a startling number of its citizens expressed a desire to leave the country, with the U.S. being the destination of choice for most of them. A survey by Prensa Libre published on Thursday found that 39 percent of Guatemalans intend to leave the country. Of those who said they wanted to leave, 85 percent picked the U.S. as the country they hoped to land in. Results also showed how emigration to the U.S. has become such an integral part of their lives, with 57 percent of respondents saying they have friends or relatives already living in America. Prensa Libre, which is one of the most circulated newspapers in the country, polled 1,596 people between Jan. 22 and March 20 using electronic devices. The survey was done in conjunction with the Association for Research and Social Studies and Barometro de las Americas. Poll results found other eyebrow-raising answers from everyday Guatemalans. Despite the dire situation in the country, 75 percent of respondents expressed “little interest” in politics. Nearly 90 percent did not align themselves with any political party, and one-in-five Guatemalans said they would not be participating in…

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Conservatives Wrestle Over How to Wallop Big Tech as Facebook Conducts Major Content Purge

by Chris White   Conservatives are considering a slew of bold ideas to hold various social media companies accountable for nixing conservative-leaning content. Some analysts worry conservative activists’ mission to damage big tech sets a bad precedent. One of the best ways to ding Facebook is to make the company responsible for the content users post, according to GOP Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. Other conservative thinkers believe depriving access to social media platforms is a type of civil rights abuse. Still others want to use anti-trust trust laws to punish Twitter. Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri suggests that social media giants have discovered a way to benefit financially by short-circuiting people’s rational thinking. “The internal tensions of our goals seem irreconcilable. How do we preserve online data privacy for users of products whose very purpose is hyper-personalized service? Or how is it possible to keep the digital platform free of criminal activity without inserting their own political biases into the editorializing that they are doing?” Hawley said Thursday during a Hoover Institute discussion on big tech. “There is something deeply wrong with the social media economy. It is a source of peril. Users attention is bought and then…

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Commentary: Mogadishu Comes to Minneapolis

by Jesse B. Russell   Ridley Scott’s 2001 masterpiece, “Black Hawk Down,” has become, like his 2000 “Gladiator,” a classic tale of the triumph and tragedy as well as the courage, heroism, and sacrifice of a small band of brothers showcasing crucial elements of what classicist Victor Davis Hanson, has called, “the Western way of war.” Based on Mark Bowden’s 1999 chronicle, “Black Hawk Down” narrates the story of the 1993 attempt by U.S. Special Forces to capture Somali warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid and his entourage in and near the Somali capital city of Mogadishu. The true story, as is commonly known, becomes a horrific bloodbath in which 19 American soldiers died at the hands of surprisingly resistant Somali militants. However, the story, under Ridley Scott’s careful command, becomes a celebration of the valor of American soldiers in the face of foreign fighters. At the same time, like Scott’s other great film chronicling an ethnic and religious clash, “Kingdom of Heaven,” “Black Hawk Down,” despite the unjust protest of leftist film critics, presents a humanizing if not sympathetic view of the Somali people—the scene in which young smiling Somali boys playfully run along with beleaguered members of Delta Force and…

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TBI: Kingsport Woman Indicted, Accused of Falsely Reporting Sexual Assault

  Authorities have indicted a Kingsport woman on charges of falsely reporting a sexual assault incident, according to a press release. In January, at the request of Second District Attorney General Barry Staubus, TBI special agents began investigating an allegation of sexual assault against a corrections officer, the press release said. Shauna Jones, 30 reported that the officer sexually assaulted her in April 2018, while she was an inmate at the Sullivan County Jail, the press release said. The investigation revealed that the incident did not occur. “Last week, the Sullivan County Grand Jury returned an indictment charging Jones with one count of False Reporting,” according to the press release. On Wednesday, she was arrested and booked into the Sullivan County Jail on a $10,000 bond. According to an American Spectator column last fall, the mantra that women never lie about sexual abuse is false. The column referenced the #MeToo movement and the “Believe Women” battle cry. “The left found this slogan useful in serving its latest political purpose: an attempted takedown of Brett Kavanaugh,” said columnist Paul Kengor. “According to the new mantra, women never lie about sexual abuse, and thus anything and everything that Christine Blasey Ford alleged of Brett Kavanaugh was, ipso facto, accurate. Every charge she…

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Commentary: Game of Thrones Shows the Problems of Centralized Power

by Daniel Buck   Recently, Barry Brownstein wrote a piece on how Game of Thrones acts as an advertisement for capitalism. He proposed that the show is representative of a feudalistic Europe: poor and economically stagnant. Were it not for the Enlightenment and the birth of free enterprise, the Western world would have remained as such. Continuing on that theme, there is another defense for capitalism within the show that directly addresses the rise in popularity of centralized theories of government in the West. The show acts almost as a thought experiment for what happens when imperfect human beings vie for control in a power vacuum and subsequently attain their goal. In Game of Thrones, we see that no single individual is fit for the Iron Throne, the seat of absolute power, just as no individual or committee is fit to rule a centralized government in the real world. Each character’s assumption of the throne exposes a unique political problem for centralized power, one that both populism and socialism fail to address. The Problem of Evil Pick almost any character in the show, and the problem of their rule is apparent. Let’s start with the obvious examples. The adolescent Joffrey…

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Man Who Oversees Tennessee Legislature’s Server Corrects Phil Williams on His Cade Cothren and Justin Jones Exposé

  The man who oversees the Tennessee General Assembly’s Local Information Server disputed some of what News Channel 5’s Phil Williams reported about Cade Cothren and Justin Jones and said so to him in an email Thursday. Cothren is chief of staff for Tennessee Speaker of the House Glen Casada. Jones is a left-wing activist and Vanderbilt Divinity School student awaiting a court date for allegedly throwing a cup of coffee at Casada as he stood in an elevator. As Williams reported this week, Cothren might have doctored the time stamp on an email to frame Jones and put him in jail. Jones emailed Casada’s office on Feb. 25, a few days before Jones allegedly assaulted Casada on Feb. 28 and also before court officials told him to have no further contact with Casada’s office. Cothren said he received Jones’ email on March 1 and immediately contacted the office of Nashville District Attorney Glen Funk. Cothren said the email server took a few days to deliver Jones’ email to his inbox. Cothren said, however, he didn’t realize this until later. The email Cothren said he received had a March 1 time stamp. On his Twitter page Friday, Williams suggested he…

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Ohio GOP to Appeal Gerrymandering Ruling to SCOTUS

by Tyler Arnold   Ohio Senate Republicans plan to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court a lower court’s ruling that the state’s district lines are unconstitutionally gerrymandered to favor the GOP. “We look forward to appealing today’s decision, and ultimately, to seeing it reversed by the Supreme Court,” Ohio Senate President Larry Obhof, R-Medina, said in a news release. “Make no mistake, this politically-motivated lawsuit was brought for the sole purpose of helping Democrat candidates win more seats,” Obhof said. “It does so at the expense of Ohio’s voters, who would be forced to vote under three different congressional maps in four calendar years. That is bad public policy and is unfair to the people of Ohio. The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected similar challenges over the past year.” The ruling followed a lawsuit spearheaded by the League of Women Voters with representation from the ACLU. The three-judge panel unanimously decided that the state legislature will be required to create new maps in time for the 2020 elections. Per the judge’s order, Ohio must create new district maps that fix the violations by June 14 and submit the plan to the judges by June 21. These lines will have to…

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President of Minneapolis Parks and Rec Says Lake Calhoun Residents Live on ‘Stolen Dakota Land’

  President of the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board Brad Bourn recently said that homeowners on Lake Calhoun are living “on stolen Dakota land.” The comments were made in the midst of an ongoing legal battle over the name of the popular Minneapolis lake. In January 2018, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources approved of renaming the lake to Bde Maka Ska, its original Dakota name. But an April 29 ruling from the Minnesota Court of Appeals found that the DNR “exceeded its authority” in renaming the lake. Renaming privileges, the ruling stated, are reserved for the State Legislature in cases when a name has been in use for 40 or more years. The DNR later announced that it would petition the ruling to the Minnesota Supreme Court. Despite the ruling, Bourn claimed that the lake will continue to be called Bde Maka Ska “for generations to come.” “The most beautiful lake in Minneapolis has been called Bde Maka Ska for generations before white settlers stole it from the Dakota,” he wrote in a Facebook post. “While it saddens me that 318 property ‘owners’ on stolen Dakota land around Bde Maka Ska calling themselves ‘Save Lake Calhoun’ have prevailed at…

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Tim Ryan on Biden’s China Comments: ‘Stunningly Out of Touch’

Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH-13) called former Vice President Joe Biden’s opinion on the economic threat posed by China “stunningly out of touch” during an appearance Saturday night on CNN’s “The Van Jones Show.” “China is going to eat our lunch? Come on, man,” Biden said during a campaign stop in Iowa last week. “I mean, you know, they’re not bad folks, folks. But guess what, they’re not, they’re not competition for us.” “No one can compete with us. Nobody can compete with us around the world,” he added. President Donald Trump called the comments “dumb” and “naive,” and Ryan, a Democratic 2020 contender, seems to agree. “You know, I actually think that’s stunning. And I love Joe Biden, but I think that’s stunningly out of touch with where we are right now,” Ryan said in response to Biden’s comments. Joe Biden’s comments that China’s economy is “not competition” for the United States is “stunningly out of touch,” 2020 candidate @RepTimRyan tells @VanJones68. Watch the full interview tonight on “The Van Jones Show” at 7 p.m. ET on CNN. https://t.co/FsRpn5BaZs pic.twitter.com/u5oYZEIfGT — CNN (@CNN) May 4, 2019 “I mean, if you look at what China’s doing, they’ve got a five year…

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Recording of Cleveland Speech Reveals Young Joe Biden Making Sexist Jokes, Using Word ‘Negro,’ Defending Republicans Against Watergate Criticisms

  The City Club of Cleveland recently released an archived recording of a May 1973 address then Sen. Joe Biden gave to the city’s popular free speech forum. The recording reveals Biden, who was then a 30-year-old, first-term senator from Delaware, making sexist jokes, using the word “Negro,” and defending his Republican colleagues against criticisms surrounding the Watergate scandal. According to the City Club of Cleveland, the remarks were delivered on May 18, 1973, just as the Senate was beginning its televised hearings on Watergate. An audio clip of Biden’s address is now available on City Club’s website. Biden began his speech with several self-deprecating jokes about his lowly position in the U.S. Senate since he was then the youngest senator in office. “It should be noted and I hope you all are duly impressed with the fact that I am one of the most powerful men in the United States. And you ladies, are you aware of that, just how powerful I am? I am number 100 in seniority and don’t forget it,” Biden said. “This young lady knows I’m so powerful she wants to get close to me. She just moved right up front here. She probably has…

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New Law Will Make Tennessee Completely ‘Hands-Free’ While Driving Effective July 1

  Both houses of the General Assembly have passed a bill that will allow only hands-free usage of a mobile telephone or personal digital assistant on any road or highway in the state of Tennessee. HB 0165 sponsored by Representative John Holsclaw (R-Elizabethton) and SB 0173 sponsored by Senator Swann (R-Maryville) will go into effect on July 1, 2019. Current law prohibits a driver from talking on a hand-held mobile device while the vehicle is in motion in a school zone when the warning flashers are in operation. A violation under current law is a non-moving traffic violation, with no points added to a driver’s record for the Class C misdemeanor punishable only by a fine of up to $50.00 plus court costs not to exceed $10. In addition, under current law it is considered a delinquent act for anyone under the age of 18 to talk on a mobile phone while operating a motor vehicle equipped with a hands-free device on any road or highway in Tennessee. The new law defines ‘hands-free’ and extends the requirement to be ‘hands-free’ to all roads and highways in Tennessee. Activities prohibited with a wireless telecommunications device in the new law while operating…

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