Elvis Presley’s Graceland Must Wait to Find Out if it’s Getting Corporate Welfare

  Officials at Elvis Presley’s Graceland attraction must wait a little while longer before they know whether they will receive corporate welfare to expand. This, according to several media outlets, who said Memphis City Council members have postponed a vote on the expansion project. Graceland’s Public Relations Office did not return The Tennessee Star’s request for comment Friday. According to The Associated Press, council members this week agreed for the fifth time to delay a vote related to a plan to provide tax incentives for a $100 million expansion of the Presley-themed tourist attraction. Graceland seeks government incentives to help build retail space and a recreational vehicle park, and to expand Graceland’s hotel. Graceland also had been seeking to add soundstages that could act as concert venues. “Council members have been concerned that the sound stages would put Graceland in competition with Memphis’ main concert venue, the FedExForum,” The AP reported. “Graceland this week offered a new plan without the soundstages but adding a new ‘auxiliary building.’ Most council members wanted more time to review the new plan.” As The Star reported in April, the people who oversee Graceland threatened to disassemble the mansion and relocate it to Nashville or…

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Commentary: Demographics Is Not Destiny

by Edward Ring   A special election is scheduled for September 10 in North Carolina’s 3rd Congressional District to replace former incumbent Walter Jones, the long-serving Republican who died earlier this year. The district is solidly Republican. Jones earned twice as many votes as his Democratic challenger in nearly every election since he first took office in 1995. But the district is interesting for another reason, one that every Republican strategist in America should study. It is one of 47 congressional districts in the United States where, in the 2018 midterm elections, a majority of nonwhite voters were projected to vote Republican. The following map, prepared by elections analyst Geoffrey Skelly at FiveThirtyEight, shows the congressional districts (red) where, if no one but nonwhite people voted, Republican candidates would still be likely to win. It’s hard to overstate the significance of these 47 congressional districts. They belie the smug certainty on the part of Democratic politicians and strategists across the United States who equate the demographic transformation of America with an inevitable and unbreakable Democratic majority. Take mass nonwhite immigration, higher birth rates for nonwhites, mix in identity politics and leftist, race-centric indoctrination against “white privilege,” and voila, America becomes…

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State Senator Looks to Change SNAP Requirements After Minnesota Millionaire Collected Food Stamps

  A Minnesota state senator wants to tighten the rules on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) after a local millionaire, in full compliance with the law, collected food stamps for more than a year. Rob Undersander was on Fox Business Thursday to explain how he pulled it off, noting that eligibility for SNAP is based on income only in Minnesota. “I was doing some volunteer work for the Central Minnesota Council on Aging where we helped seniors sign up for Medicare plans, navigate numerous resources and other social programs. I received formal training for this from the state of Minnesota. During one of the classes, they handed out a food stamp application in the event that we needed to help seniors fill it out, explaining that eligibility is based on income only. In comparison, for many other programs eligibility was ascending income limits and assets for descending benefits,” Undersander said. “In other words, if a person has money in the bank or in their retirement account, they don’t necessarily need government assistance. At the time, my wife and I were recently retired, drawing very little income, living off our savings—living very well. And I thought to myself: would I…

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ECD Hands Out Corporate Welfare to Company Moving to Cleveland, Tennessee

  The Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development will reportedly bestow corporate welfare upon a new business in Cleveland, near Chattanooga. This, according to this week’s Cleveland Daily Banner. The reported recipient of this money is called Triumph Sheets LLC, an affiliate of Schwarz Partners. An unnamed representative of Schwarz Partners told The Tennessee Star Friday that no one at the company usually talks to the media. No one at the Tennessee ECD returned The Star’s repeated requests for comment Friday. “The Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development will be providing grant funding through its FastTrack Infrastructure Development Program to assist the Industrial Development Board and the city of Cleveland with the costs of railroad infrastructure rehabilitation, Berry said,” according to The Cleveland Daily Banner. “As a result, the Cleveland/Bradley County Industrial Development Board, along with Bradley County and the City of Cleveland, will apply for a FastTrack grant for $500,000 from the state’s TDECD to assist with the infrastructure needs of the project.” In addition, according to the newspaper, “the state will provide $50,000 to offset training expenses, as well as some $2.5 million in job creation, enhanced jobs, industrial machinery and sales and use tax exemption…

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Michigan Senators File Bill to Ban Sanctuary Cities

by Tyler Arnold   Two Michigan Republican senators filed legislation that would prohibit a locality from establishing policies that provide a sanctuary for immigrants who entered the United States illegally. Senate Bill 382, sponsored by Sen. Aric Nesbitt, R-Lawton, would make it illegal for counties to establish policies that put restrictions on officers, local officials or employees preventing them from communicating or cooperating with federal officials about a person’s immigration status. Senate Bill 383, sponsored by Sen. Tom Barrett, R-Charlotte, would make it illegal for cities, townships or villages to establish such policies. “Many people, including myself, have a difficult time understanding how local units of government can get away with deliberately hindering the enforcement of federal immigration law,” Nesbitt said in a news release. “Local governments with sanctuary policies protect criminal illegal aliens instead of their own residents. This dangerous lawlessness must be stopped.” If a locality already has a policy on the books that violates this law, it would have up to 60 days after the legislation is signed to update their ordinance to comply with the statewide mandate. Failure to do so could result in litigation against the locality by the state. “This is not only a…

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House Democrats Are Planning to Sue Former White House Counsel Don McGahn, Force Him to Testify

by Shelby Talcott   House Democrats say Hope Hicks’ testimony Wednesday will help them win a lawsuit they plan to bring against former White House counsel Don McGahn to force him to testify. Hicks, a former White House communications director, refused to answer questions such as where she sat in the West Wing or if she lied to special counsel Robert Mueller. Hicks’ testimony is an example that shows how much the White House has begun to block witnesses from testifying and is exactly what Democrats need to win the lawsuit, according to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, Politico reported. White House lawyers blocked Hicks from answering hundreds of questions during her testimony Wednesday, according to transcripts. Many House Democrats expressed frustration after the private meeting, but Nadler said he knew it would happen and that it played into Democrats’ hands, Politico reported. “It very much played into our hands,” Nadler, a New York Democrat, said in an interview with Politico. “It’s one thing to tell a judge blanket immunity is not a right thing. It’s another thing when a judge can see what that means in actuality, and how absurd it is.” The White House has said Hicks…

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Pennsylvania Farmer Wins Supreme Court Case That Finds Federal Property Rights are Equal to Other Constitutional Rights

  The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday ruled in favor of a Pennsylvania farm owner who said the government effectively took her property without paying for it. Rose Knick won the victory in the case of Knick v. Township of Scott. In making its ruling, SCOTUS overturned a 1985 precedent, Williamson County Regional Planning Commission v. Hamilton Bank of Johnson City. The Supreme Court’s opinion is here. Knick was represented by Pacific Legal Foundation, which argued for SCOTUS to overturn the 1985 ruling that allowed federal courts to refuse to hear her challenge to a local ordinance that forced her to allow public access to her private farmland, according to a press release by PLF. PLF said in a story that Knick’s ordeal began in 2013, when government agents forced her to allow public access to a suspected gravesite on her farmland. She sued over the unconstitutional taking. A federal court refused to hear her federal claim, citing the 1985 decision. Hamilton Bank of Johnson City, Tennessee owned of a tract of land in Williamson County and intended to develop it into a residential subdivision, according to a case summary by Oyez. The Williamson County Regional Planning Commission denied the…

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Commentary: Ahead of G-20, Currency Dominates Global Economic Landscape as Trump Blasts Chinese, European Devaluations

by Robert Romano   President Donald Trump is broadening his trade message to foreign economies to include currency ahead of the G-20 meetings in Japan next week, blasting both China and Europe for competitive devaluations of the yuan and euro, respectively. On June 18, Trump tweeted, “Mario Draghi just announced more stimulus could come, which immediately dropped the Euro against the Dollar, making it unfairly easier for them to compete against the USA. They have been getting away with this for years, along with China and others.” Here, Trump is referring to European Central Bank Chairman (ECB) Mario Draghi’s statement at the ECB Forum in Sintra, Portugal on June 18 where he announced potential interest rate cuts could be on the horizon if the economy deteriorates. Besides tariffs and subsidies, the greatest weapons that economies wield against each other on the trade front are competitive devaluations, which make exports cheaper and imports more expensive. It is simultaneously a move to increase domestic consumption and boost profits from overseas. Draghi has responded that “we don’t target the exchange rate” in ECB operations, but it is worth noting that since its 2011 highs, the euro has depreciated almost 25 percent against the…

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White House Asserts Executive Privilege in Census Fight

  President Donald Trump has asserted executive privilege over documents that were subpoenaed by Congress related to the Trump administration’s decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census, the Justice Department said Wednesday. The claim comes as the House Oversight Committee considers whether to hold Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in contempt for failing to turn over the subpoenaed documents. A contempt vote by the committee would be an escalation of Democratic efforts to use their House majority to aggressively investigate the inner workings of the Trump administration. In a letter to the committee’s chairman, Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the Justice Department asserted that the administration has “engaged in good-faith efforts” to satisfy the committee’s oversight needs and said the planned contempt vote was premature. Democrats fear the question will reduce census participation in immigrant-heavy communities. They say they want specific documents to determine why Ross added the citizenship question to the 2020 census and contend the Trump administration has declined to provide them despite repeated requests. The administration has turned over more than 17,000 of pages of documents and Ross testified for nearly seven hours. The Justice Department has said two senior…

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More Than 100,000 Illegal Migrants Have Escaped Border Patrol Agents in 2019, Provost Says

by Jason Hopkins   Border Patrol Chief Carla Provost spoke to Congress on Thursday about the immigration crisis, and how it’s keeping agents from apprehending migrants who cross the border illegally. “I have been forced to divert 40% to 60% of Border Patrol’s manpower away from the border as we process and care for nearly 435,000 family and children that have flooded across our southern border so far this year,” Provost said Thursday before the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border Security, Facilitation and Operations. Border Patrol and other agencies within the Department of Homeland Security have long complained the immigration crisis has forced them away from their enforcement duties, as they must handle the large influx of illegal migrants needing to be processed within the U.S. Provost said 1,036 illegal migrants were caught in a single group in May — the largest single apprehension in the 95-year history of the Border Patrol. Such overwhelming numbers, she said, have forced her agents to abandon their posts, leaving other illegal migrants able to evade arrests. “So far this year, we have observed 100,00 people who have successfully evaded arrest, a five-year high in what we call ‘got-aways,’” the Border Patrol chief…

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Supreme Court Throws Out Case Where Prosecutors Illegally Excluded African American Jurors

by Kevin Daley   The Supreme Court tossed out capital defendant Curtis Flowers’s death sentence Friday, finding that prosecutors unlawfully rigged his jury by excluding African Americans. Justice Brett Kavanaugh delivered the opinion for a seven-justice majority, which said the prosecution violated the 1986 Batson v. Kentucky decision. Batson provides that peremptory strikes — which allow lawyers to boot prospective jurors for any reason at all — cannot be used to exclude people based on race. “The state’s relentless, determined effort to rid the jury of black individuals strongly suggests that the state wanted to try Flowers before a jury with as few black jurors as possible, and ideally before an all-white jury,” Kavanaugh wrote. “The trial judge was aware of the history. But the judge did not sufficiently account for the history when considering Flowers’ Batson claim.” “In the Dark,” an American Public Media podcast, produced an award-winning series on the Flowers case. A white prosecutor, Doug Evans, has tried Flowers six times in the Mississippi courts for a 1996 quadruple homicide. Two of those cases resulted in a mistrial due to deadlocked juries. Flowers was found guilty in the other three, but appeals courts lifted those convictions because…

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Obama-Appointed Judge Blocks ICE From Arresting Illegal Immigrants at Courthouses

by Jason Hopkins   A Massachusetts federal judge appointed by former President Barack Obama ruled that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents cannot make arrests at courthouses in the state, dealing a major blow to the agency. Judge Indira Talwani of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts ruled Thursday that ICE agents are barred from “civilly arresting parties, witnesses and others attending Massachusetts courthouses on official business while they are going to, attending or leaving the courthouse,” per Talwani’s Memorandum and Order. ICE agents are not only prohibited from apprehending illegal aliens inside courthouses, but they also cannot make arrests on courthouse steps and parking lots. The ruling is the first in the country to prohibit these type of immigration arrests across a whole state, according to the Associated Press. Talwani was nominated to serve on the court by then-President Barack Obama in 2013, and she began serving the following year. The preliminary injunction came in a case filed by a coalition of prosecutors, public defenders and other immigration activists in April. The plaintiffs argue that ICE arrests in courthouses make illegal immigrants fearful to step into a courtroom at all, making it harder to bring forward…

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Report: Deportation Rates Were Actually Higher During Obama Years

by Ben Whedon   Deportations under President Donald Trump have not reached the highs seen during the Obama administration, despite immigration enforcement being one of his signature campaign issues. During former President Barack Obama’s early years in the White House, the deportation of illegal immigrants reached record highs, according to Homeland Security documents obtained by Axios. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sent back more than 385,000 illegals each fiscal year from 2009 to 2011 — and reached a record high of 409,849 in fiscal year 2012. These numbers tapered off in Obama’s later years, dropping under 250,000 in fiscal year 2015 and 2016. While deportations have steadily risen during Trump’s presidency, the have notably not reached the highs of his predecessor. In fiscal 2017, federal immigration authorities conducted 226,119 deportations. These numbers climbed to more than 250,000 in fiscal 2018, and reached a Trump high this fiscal year with 282,242 deportations as of June. There are still roughly three more months left in the current fiscal year, giving Trump more time to tick the numbers up. While Obama launched major initiatives aimed at protecting illegal immigrants, such as the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, he was also criticized…

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Movies to Watch This Weekend

  In this week’s edition of movies to watch, a popular kids movie hits the big screen and America’s favorite doll comes back to life. Toy Story 4: Your favorite characters, Woody and Buzz Lightyear, are back on the big screen this weekend with the premiere of Toy Story 4 Friday. In the fourth installment of Toy Story, Buzz, Woody, Bonnie and new character Frankie goes on a new adventure where Woody meets an old friend. The movie, starring Tim Allen and Tom Hanks, received positive reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes has given the adventure film a 98 percent rating. Even the audience agrees with the critics, as it has given the film a 96 percent rating. Child’s Play: A common theme of summer movies is happiness, but this horror movie is anything but that. Child’s Play, which debuted Friday, focuses on a young boy named Andy Barclay who gets a doll from his mom. Andy becomes attached to the doll, which has named itself Chucky, and becomes his best friend. However, as soon as Andy grows attached, the doll literally takes on a life of its own and starts terrorizing his family. The 1988 rebooted movie has received mixed…

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Super Bowl Champion Burgess Owens Blasts Rep. Steve Cohen’s Slavery Reparation Hearings: The Democrat Party Should Pay Restitution

  At the hearings held by U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen of Memphis (D-TN-09), one of the testifying witnesses took a different tack from all the others when he suggested that it is the Democrat Party that should pay restitution for the misery it has brought to his race. The hearing held by Cohen, as reported by The Tennessee Star, was of the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Subcommittee of the House Committee on the Judiciary regarding H.R. 40 and the Path to Restorative Justice. The hearing, scheduled for June 19 at 10 a.m., included nine witnesses on two panels, with Panel 1 being reserved exclusively for U.S. Senator Cory Booker. The list of Panel 2’s eight witnesses included Mr. Ta-Neheisi Coates, Distinguished Writer in Residence, Arthur J. Carter Journalism Institute of New York University; Mr. Danny Glover, actor and activist; Mr. Katrina Browne, documentarian, “Traces of the Trade;” Mr. Coleman Hughes, writer, Quilette online magazine; Mr. Burgess Owens, speaker and writer; Rev. Eugene Taylor Sutton, Episcopal Church of Maryland; Dr. Julianne Malveaux, economist and political commentator; and Mr. Eric Miller, Professor of Law, Loyola Law School, Loyola Marymount University. Predictably, given the topic of the hearing, Cohen being the…

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