Day: June 1, 2019

Trump to Honor Nashville Economist Laffer, ‘Father of Supply-Side Economics,’ with Presidential Medal of Freedom

Jason M. Reynolds

  President Donald Trump will present Arthur B. Laffer with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The presentation will take place on June 19. Dr. Laffer is called the “Father of Supply-Side Economics” and is one of the most influential economists in American history, the White House said in a press release. Laffer is renowned for his economic theory, the “Laffer Curve,” which establishes the strong incentive effects of lower tax rates that spur investment, production, jobs, wages, economic growth and tax compliance, the White House said. Laffer was the first chief economist of the Office of Management and Budget and a top economic advisor to President Ronald Reagan. Among other accomplishments during his career, he served as a consultant to the Department of the Treasury and Department of Defense. Laffer’s public service and contributions to economic policy have helped spur prosperity for the nation, the White House said. Laffer is a native of Youngstown, Ohio, who lives in Nashville, Politico said. He moved with his business, Laffer Associates, from San Diego to Nashville in 2003, the Nashville Post said. The economist said he made the move because Tennessee does not have an income tax. His company provides international investment advisory…

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Hamilton County Commissioners Warn Left-Wing Group UnifiEd Could Spread Influence Across Tennessee

Chris Butler

  Depending upon whom you ask, the Chattanooga-based UnifiEd is either a harmless political group with no real clout or it’s one of Tennessee’s most far-left and dangerous organizations. Many people in Hamilton County believe UnifiEd members orchestrated a proposal to add 350 new positions to the county school system, at a cost of $34 million, and at taxpayer expense. As reported, many of those proposed positions are for social workers and new administrators. Most school board members voted for the plan, but county commissioners have the final say approving it. If they do so, they may have to raise property taxes. County Commissioner Tim Boyd told The Tennessee Star this week he doesn’t underestimate UnifiEd, nor will he take any chances on the threat he says members pose. “UnifiEd has a political agenda, and it is not to improve education in Hamilton County. It is to turn Hamilton County from bright red (politically) to dark blue,” Boyd said, adding he’s spent a lot of one-on-one time with UnifiEd members, and he knows them well. No one at UnifiEd’s Chattanooga office returned repeated requests for comment Friday. “The GOP locally keeps ignoring me screaming and hollering about them,” Boyd said…

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Raheem Kassam Commentary: European Election Signal Surge in Support for Anti-Establishment Policies in the Age of Trump

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by Raheem Kassam   Establishment Democrats intent on unseating President Trump in next year’s election won’t find much solace in the results of the European elections. The results of last week’s elections underscored voters’ unabated rejection of establishment politicians and rising support for the nationalist right, of which America’s MAGA movement is a central component. The forces of the old liberal, globalist order that Donald Trump defeated in the U.S. in 2016 are now in retreat all across the old continent. Nigel Farage, the Brexit visionary and early Trump endorser, now leads the largest single party – The Brexit Party – in Brussels. Matteo Salvini, whose Lega Party’s unrelenting stand against illegal immigration electrified Italian politics, took a decisive win. For decades America’s coastal liberal elites have thumbed their noses at their “deplorable” countrymen who voted for Donald Trump and looked across the Atlantic for an example of a more “enlightened” citizenry. They seemed to carry the view that if only these middle America Trump supporters were more like Europeans, leftists could have things their way. If last week’s European elections are any indication, they may need to re-assess that assumption. Despite their thinking, the Democrats don’t represent a cosmopolitan…

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Report: Migrant Children Are Being Detained Longer than the Law Allows

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by Jason Hopkins   The sheer number of unaccompanied alien children (UACs) arriving at the U.S. southern border is bottlenecking law enforcement resources, reportedly forcing Border Patrol to keep migrant children longer than the legal requirement. Hundreds of the 2,000 or so UACs currently held in Border Patrol custody have been detained at stations and processing centers longer than the 72-hour limit, according to a report by The Washington Post. Around 1,000 of the UACs are reportedly held longer than the legal limit, while more than 250 children 12 and younger are being detained for an average of six days. The law mandates that Border Patrol must transfer UACs to a children’s shelter run by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) within 72 hours, but immigration officials say the record number of illegal immigrants appearing in their custody has overwhelmed their operations. “It’s a daily battle,” one border agent told The Washington Post said about the crisis. “You catch a thousand people a day, and then you can only process 750 a day. The agents are working their tails off trying to get this squared away, but it’s a daily struggle with the amount of people we’re encountering.”…

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Barr Says Official Explanation for Trump Surveillance Isn’t Adding Up

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by Chuck Ross   Attorney General William Barr says that official statements about the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation “are just not jiving” with information he has learned during his short stint in office. “I assumed I’d get answers when I went in and I have not gotten answers that are well satisfactory, and in fact probably have more questions,” Barr said in an interview with CBS News, adding that “some of the facts that…I’ve learned don’t hang together with the official explanations of what happened.” “[T]here’s some questions that I think have to be answered, and I have a basis for feeling there has to be a review of this,” he told CBS. Barr is investigating government agencies’ surveillance activities against the Trump campaign, as well as the FBI’s rationale for opening a counterintelligence investigation against Trump associates in July 2016. Barr caused a stir during a Senate hearing on April 9 when he said that he believed that “spying did occur” against the Trump campaign. He has since defended using the term “spying,” saying that there is nothing wrong with intelligence agencies spying. But he said he wants to find out whether there was a proper predicate for…

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Ohio House Speaker Defends Nuclear Bailout as Key to Saving Jobs, Avoiding Energy Dependency

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  In the days before it passed in the Ohio House, Speaker Larry Householder argued that state aid for the nuclear industry was appropriate because it produces the bulk of the state’s clean energy. Householder, R-Glenford, appeared on the TV program “The State of Ohio” and went on the attack when the discussion focused on House Bill 6, which is designed to preserve the state’s two nuclear power plants and their 700 jobs. While the legislation has been derided by critics as a bailout bill for bankrupt First Energy, which owns the Davis-Besse and Perry nuclear plants, Householder argued that the plants produce 90 percent of the state’s clean energy. “We cannot walk away from that,” he said. Householder’s interview was taped prior to House Republicans stripping provisions that would bolster efforts to generate wind and solar energy in the state. The current version of the bill would add a surcharge to consumer’s power bill that would benefit First Energy and Ohio Valley Electric Corp. Ohio law requires the state to get an eighth of its energy from clean, renewable sources by 2027. Since that law was passed 11 years ago, Householder said only 3 percent of Ohio’s current energy…

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More Asylum-Seekers Sue Trump Administration

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  A group of detained asylum-seekers sued the U.S. government Thursday claiming immigration officials in five Southern states are systematically denying them parole. In the second lawsuit of its kind filed against the Trump administration, legal advocacy groups representing 12 plaintiffs are seeking class-action status on behalf of hundreds of asylum seekers being held in detention centers in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee. In addition to Central American migrants, the plaintiffs include a member of a Cameroonian opposition party and Cuban and Venezuelan political dissidents. Migrants who arrive at U.S. ports of entry and ask for refuge in the United States are not eligible for bond hearings in front of a judge, but they can be released from detention on parole for humanitarian reasons under a 2009 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) policy. Denying parole The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Southern Poverty Law Center, claims that in recent months there has been an “unwritten policy and practice of categorically denying parole to asylum-seekers” that violates the government’s “own directive and guidelines.” According to ICE data cited in the complaint, the New Orleans Field Office, which…

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Missouri Abortion Clinic to Stay Open for Now After Court Order

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Reuters   Missouri’s only abortion clinic will stay open at least a few more days after a judge on Friday granted a request by Planned Parenthood for a temporary restraining order, allowing the facility to keep operating until a hearing on Tuesday. Planned Parenthood sued Missouri this week after state health officials said the license for Reproductive Health Services of Planned Parenthood in St. Louis was in jeopardy, meaning the clinic could have closed at midnight unless the judge granted the request for a temporary restraining order. “Today is a victory for women across Missouri, but this fight is far from over,” Planned Parenthood President Leana Wen said in a statement after Circuit Court Judge Michael Stelzer agreed to the organization’s request. Representatives for the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services could not immediately be reached for comment. Health officials had refused to renew the clinic’s license because they said, they were unable to interview seven of its physicians over “potential deficient practices,” according to documents filed in a St. Louis court. The legal battle in St. Louis comes a week after Missouri Governor Mike Parson, a Republican, signed a bill banning abortion beginning in the eighth week of…

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Comptrollers Find Water Damage at $160 Million Tennessee State Museum Building

Chris Butler

  Three buildings that are part of the Tennessee State Museum have had water damage, including the new $160 million state museum on Nashville’s Bicentennial Mall. This, according to a report Tennessee Comptrollers released this week. The museum opened last fall. At stake are many priceless artifacts from Tennessee’s long history that no amount of money could ever replace. “Although museum management took steps to deploy adequate physical safeguards to protect artifacts from water damage, the risk remains that artifacts will suffer irreparable damage, causing not only an increase in the museum’s restoration costs but also a loss of Tennessee’s cultural history,” Comptrollers wrote. Comptrollers said they met with members of the Tennessee Department of General Services to discuss the matter. The new building is under warranty for one year, and the roof is under warranty for 30 years, the report stated. “According to DGS management, from October 2018 to early February 2019, they found six leaks and repaired them. On February 6, 2019, approximately six inches of rain fell in the downtown Nashville area. On February 7, staff found two more leaks—one in an electrical closet and one in the exhibition area,” according to the audit. “DGS management stated…

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Obama Goes to Brazil And Bashes US Gun Laws

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by Whitney Tipton   Former President Barack Obama told a crowd in Brazil Thursday that U.S. gun laws “don’t make sense” because people can buy “any weapon, any time.” Obama‘s remarks came during an interview at VTEX DAY, a conference in Sao Paulo, Brazil, after he was asked to describe his hardest day as president. “The most difficult day that I’ve had was the day that there was a shooting in a school where 20 small children were shot,” he said. “Some of you may be aware, our gun laws in the United States don’t make much sense. Anybody can buy any weapon, any time without much, if any, regulation. They buy it over the internet. They can buy machine guns.” U.S. Federal firearms laws are stricter than Obama represented. Gun purchasers must be at least 18 for rifles and shotguns, and 21 for handguns, and pass a background check if they buy from a dealer, according to the National Rifle Association. In addition, fully automatic machine guns cannot be sold to private citizens, as written in the National Firearms Act. Obama’s comments about guns are timely for Brazil. In January, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro issued a temporary decree that…

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Commentary: Democrats Tee-Up Bills to Grant Amnesty to Drug Smugglers, Prostitutes and Gang Members

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by CHQ Staff   House Democrats are teeing up their next major pieces of legislation: immigration bills that would allow millions of otherwise ineligible aliens to apply for legal status and put them on a path to US citizenship. The DREAM Act of 2019 (H.R. 2820) grants amnesty, including a path to citizenship, to an undefined population estimated in the millions by amnesty advocates. According to an analysis by our friends at NumbersUSA the bill excludes any enforcement or improvements to immigration law to prevent future illegal immigration or mitigate the current border surge. The bill also fails to prevent the illegal alien parents responsible for the illegal entry of minors from receiving derivative legal status or citizenship. NumbersUSA also says the bill provides amnesty (conditional permanent residence, or CPR) for illegal aliens who were part of the 2014 unaccompanied alien children (UAC) crisis, and it places no age cap on applicants for the amnesty so every illegal alien who has been here since 2015 can apply. Further, H.R. 2820 waives, automatically, certain grounds of inadmissibility, including public charge, visa or admission fraud, and false claims to US citizenship. And the bill allows DHS to waive of other grounds of…

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Growing Number of Felons Strain Probation System in Minnesota

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by Noell Evans   The number of people on probation in Minnesota has increased by 5,000 over the past five years. In 2018, more than 46,000 residents in the state were under some level of community supervision. But the state’s probation system has not grown at the same rate. It’s a concern that the state recognizes but a solution remains elusive. “Caseload sizes are already above the recommended standards and the number of persons under felony probation supervision continues to increase,” Sarah Fitzgerald, director of Communications and Media Relations for the Minnesota Department of Corrections, said. The American Probation and Parole Association recommended standards in 2011 for supervision agents are 20 to 1 for intensive felons, 50 to 1 for moderate to high felonies and 200 to 1 for low parolees. In Minnesota, the ratio is 66 to 1 for the most intensive parolees and 104 to 1 for moderate. “Minnesota has a long history of using community supervision as an alternative to incarceration,” Fitzgerald said. “While there are 10,000 incarcerated individuals, the state supervises over 100,000 individuals in the community. This practice of using community supervision saves taxpayer dollars and produces better justice system results through keeping people connected…

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On Trump’s Newest Tariff, Minnesota’s Rep. Angie Craig Tweets, ‘Where Is the Adult in the Room Who Knows What the H*** They’re Doing on Trade?’

Zachery Schmidt

  Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN-2) sent a tweetstorm Friday night talking about President Trump’s new threatened tariffs on Mexico. “Where is the adult in the room who knows what the hell they’re doing on trade?” Craig continued by saying small businesses and farmers will be the ones affected by the “President’s reckless trade wars.” Where is the adult in the room who knows what the hell they're doing on trade? https://t.co/aHTkWG3YVi — Angie Craig (@AngieCraigMN) May 31, 2019 “Our small businesses and farmers pay the price for this President’s reckless trade wars – not China, not Mexico – our communities pay,” Craig tweeted. In her next two tweets, she talked about her personal experience with farmers. “I watched my grandfather lose his way of life in the 1980’s farm crisis. I’ve sat with dairy farmers who wonder how their going to make it another year. This isn’t a game – this is people’s livelihoods.” “Farmers are the fabric of greater MN and deserve better than the President’s twitter trade war.” Farmers are the fabric of greater MN and deserve better than the President’s twitter trade war. — Angie Craig (@AngieCraigMN) May 31, 2019 Trump threatened on Twitter Thursday to put…

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Left-Wing Activists Target Ohio’s Kids – Delaware County First, Now Licking County

Beth Lear

  NEWARK, Ohio – What began in Delaware, Ohio as a Drag 101 class for “teens only” has morphed into “A Universe of Stories – Galaxy of Diversity – An Event for LGBTQIA Teens and Advocates” at the Licking County Library. The event description from the library webpage states, “Shine like the star that you are at this special teen after-hours program celebrating Newark’s Pride Day. The festivities include a drag queen celestial makeup tutorial, flag button and rainbow wing crafts, a safe-sex program from Equitas Health, and games just for you. The library will be closed, but we are open. *Please note: this program includes sexual content.” Rumors were swirling in Delaware County after the Drag 101 class being sponsored by the county library was “canceled” and moved to Secret Identity Comics. One of the rumors was that Licking County Library was also hosting a Drag class. That information and more was confirmed by a staff member at the host branch, West Newark (Emerson R. Miller) at 990 West Main Street. “We have a strong Pride group here (in Newark),” library staff declared. “We are working with Trisha Pound (Executive Director) of Newark Pride,” on the class. Ms. Pound…

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Ohio’s Presidential Hopeful Tim Ryan Moves to Flip on ‘Impeachment’

Zachery Schmidt

  Ohio Representative Tim Ryan (D-OH-13) has tightened his stance on impeaching President Trump after Robert Mueller’s press conference this week. “I don’t want to impeach him. I have been around 20 years and I know what will exactly happen. It is going to be very divisive for our country. But, it looks like we have to because he’s not a king,” Ryan said in an interview with NPR on Thursday. Ryan later added he had read the Mueller Report a couple of times and found multiple occasions where President Trump obstructed justice. “We may be left with no choice at this point, but to impeach him,” the presidential candidate said. The Ohio Representative seems to have found Mueller’s press conference compelling. “I’m a lot closer today than I was yesterday,” Ryan Said; adding, “I think what Mueller said [Wednesday] basically said that he would have indicted the president, but for the fact that the law would not allow it.” During the special counsel’s press conference, he addressed the concerns about his report. He told a group of reporters not enough evidence to determine if Trump had committed a crime. Also, Mueller said that his testimony if subpoenaed to testify…

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State House Republican Leader William Lamberth Will Not Run for Speaker

Laura Baigert

  As the chief officer of the Republican Party in the House, Majority Leader William Lamberth (R-Portland) told The Tennessee Star that he will not run for the role of Speaker after Glen Casada (R-Franklin) steps down. Casada, who was elected into the role of Speaker of the House in January 2019, became embroiled in a media frenzy that started in the last days of the first session of the 111th General Assembly and lasted about three weeks. After several private texts with racial and sexual content with his chief of staff were released, the chief of staff was accused of altering the date of an email to frame a regular protestor at the Capitol, allegations of surveilling committee rooms and wrongdoing on the vote to pass the Education Savings Account, the House Republican Caucus held a private meeting that resulted in a vote of no confidence in Casada as Speaker. “I’m not interested in running as Speaker at this time,” Lamberth told The Star. He further elaborated, “I ran for State Representative for a two year term – and that’s a blessing. I love serving my community.” “I also ran to serve as Majority Leader for a two-year term,”…

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