Day: June 8, 2021

Trial Begins for University of Tennessee, Knoxville Science Professor Allegedly Hiding Chinese Research Affiliations

Corinne Murdock

A previously tenured science professor from University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK) faced trial Monday for allegedly covering up his research affiliations with China. The professor, Anming Hu, was first indicted last February by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). His trial is a part of the DOJ’s “China Initiative,” an investigative effort by the DOJ’s National Security Division (NSD) to identify and prosecute individuals engaged in trade secret theft, hacking, economic espionage, foreign direct investment threats, and supply chain compromises to benefit the Chinese government.

The trial, United States v. Anming Hu, began Monday at 9 a.m. EST in the Eastern. According to court documents, the hearing is scheduled to continue Tuesday morning at 9 a.m. In addition to facing charges for false statements about his affiliations with the Beijing University of Technology (BJUT), Hu is facing charges of wire fraud. 

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Commentary: The Lethal Wages of Trump Derangement Madness

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Trump protest

Think about it: For about five years, anything candidate, president-elect, and President Trump said or did, the media, the Left, and progressive popular culture opposed in Pavlovian fashion.

Anything that Trump touched was ridiculed or discredited—regardless of evidence, data, or cogency. The merits of a Trump policy, a Trump assessment, a Trump initiative were irrelevant—given the primordial hatred of the Left of all things Trump: the president, the person, the family. 

Under the reductionist malady of Trump Derangement Syndrome, facts and logic did not matter. Instead, anything not said or done in opposition to Trump empowered the supposed existential Trump threat. Ironically, some of the most deductive and reductionist Trump haters were supposedly professionals, the highly educated, and the self-proclaimed devotees of the Enlightenment. And yet in their uncontrolled aversion and detestation, they suspended all the rules of empiricism, logic, and rationality—and people died as a result.

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Pension Bailout Agency Flagged for Contract Bribery, Fraud and Payments to Dead Americans

Admin
American flag with handcuffs and $100 bills

This week’s Golden Horseshoe award goes to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., the nation’s pension bailout agency that is still reeling from revelations its chief of contracting engaged in a bribery scheme that steered $4.8 million in fraudulent business to a vendor in return for more than $1 million in personal benefits.

The bribery scheme involving the now convicted director of PBGC’s Procurement Department was possible because the agency suffered from several vulnerabilities, including reduced competition among vendors, missing legal reviews and sole-source contracts that evaded bidding designed to get taxpayers the best bargain, the PBGC’s inspector general reported.

“His actions were enabled by internal control weaknesses; specifically, inadequate oversight of PD procurements and a lack of a control mechanism to ensure that PD sent all requisite contract actions for legal review,” the inspector general reported. “Although PBGC began requiring that more contract actions receive legal review after the PD Director resigned in February 2020, it does not have a mechanism to ensure PD complies with this requirement.”

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New York Psychiatrist Admits in Yale Lecture to Fantasizing About Shooting White People

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Aruna Khilanani

A psychiatrist from New York City went on a racist rant back in April in which she expressed her desire to kill White people simply because they are White, as heard in recently-revealed audio of the lecture, the New York Post reports.

The comments were made by Dr. Aruna Khilanani during a lecture to the Yale School of Medicine on April 6th. She said that she dreams of “unloading a revolver into the head of any White person that got in my way,” and that if she did so, she would leave the scene of the crime “with a bounce in my step.” She added that White people “make [her] blood boil,” and also believes that White people “are out of their minds and have been for a long time.”

The lecture was titled “The Psychopathic Problem of the White Mind.” During the speech, Khilanani talked about “learning objectives” such as “[setting] up White people’s absence of empathy towards black rage as a problem,” and also claiming that “White people are psychologically dependent on black rage.” These details, along with the full audio of the lecture, were posted online via Substack on Friday, by former New York Times editor Bari Weiss.

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Republicans Win Big in Texas Mayoral Races with Increased Latino Support

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Jim Ross Javier Villalobos, and Mattie Parker

Republicans swept Texas’ mayoral elections over the weekend, relying on increased Hispanic support to win in large and mid-sized cities alike.

In Forth Worth, a city of just over 1 million, 37-year-old Republican Mattie Parker cruised to victory against Democrat Deborah Peoples, making her the youngest mayor in the city’s history, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported. In McAllen, Texas, a border town of approximately 150,000 where 85% of residents are Hispanic, Republican Javier Villalobos became the first GOP mayor elected since 1997, Valley Central News reported.

Republicans were also victorious in Arlington, Texas, a suburb of 400,000 just outside Forth Worth. GOP candidate Jim Ross, a former police officer in the city, beat the Democratic candidate after campaigning on an anti-crime platform and earning endorsements from several police groups, according to the Star-Telegram.

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Former President Trump Calls on All Republican Lawmakers to Ban Critical Race Theory

Cooper Moran

Former President Trump urged Republicans “at every level” throughout the county to ban the teaching of Critical Race Theory (CRT) education.

“Republicans at every level should move to immediately ban critical race theory in schools, and we should ban it in workplaces, we should ban it in our states, and we should ban in the federal government. And it should be done immediately,” Trump said while speaking at the North Carolina Republican Party state convention.

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Yellen Admits Inflation Is About to Surge But Says It Will Be ‘Plus For Society’s Point of View’

Admin
Janet Yellen

Increased inflation could ultimately be a net positive for the U.S. economy and large government spending won’t overheat the economy, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told Bloomberg.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who previously chaired the Federal Reserve, said the central bank has been more concerned about inflation levels that are too low, according to Bloomberg. Increasing consumer prices could signal a return to normal, she said.

“We’ve been fighting inflation that’s too low and interest rates that are too low now for a decade,” Yellen told Bloomberg in an interview Sunday.

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United Women of Tennessee to Host ‘Freedom Fest’ with Vendors, Live Music This Saturday – Proceeds to Go to Scholarship Fund

Corinne Murdock

This Saturday, United Women of Tennessee (UWTN) is hosting a “Freedom Fest” with live music, crafters, and food. Proceeds from Freedom Fest will go to the Alicia Lundquist Memorial Scholarship Fund for Conservative Women. Admission is free.

Freedom Fest will take place from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. CST at the Bunganut Pig in Franklin. A total of 20 crafters and vendors from across the state will be present, selling local goods including jewelry, clothing, and more. Live music will be provided by local talents Doug Mathis, Austin Daniels, and Sami Lin. The Bunganut Pig will feature a variety of food specials. 

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Biden Declines to Acknowledge D-Day, Psaki Sidesteps When Asked Why

Cooper Moran
Joe Biden

President Joe Biden did not acknowledge the 77th anniversary of D-Day on Monday, becoming the first president in recent history to fail to commemorate the monumental day in U.S. history. 

White House Press Secretary attempted to defend Biden on Monday during a press briefing when asked for an explanation on Biden’s decision. “Well, I can tell you that certainly, his value for the role the men who served on D-Day, and the memory of them, the families who have kept their memories alive over the course of years on this day is something the president has spoke to many times in the past. It’s close to his heart,” she said. 

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Google ‘Diversity Head’ Posted Anti-Semitic Comments, Will Stay with Company

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Phone with Google search engine on screen

Google announced that it will remove its global lead for diversity strategy and research, Kamau Bobb, after a 2007 blog post in which he’d made antisemitic comments surfaced, Fox News reported.  Bobb will be reassigned to a STEM research role.

The reassignment comes after revelations that Bobb had previously authored a blog post that contained antisemitic statements.

In a 2007 blog post by Bobb titled “If I Were a Jew,” he wrote that Jewish people had an “insensitivity” to suffering and stated “If I were a Jew I would be concerned about my insatiable appetite for war and killing in defense of myself.” The post has since been removed, but is recorded here.

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Commentary: Twenty Billion Reasons to Take Homeschooling More Seriously

Admin
Boy in gray shirt on laptop at home

American public education is so hard to reform because of its great size. The economy of K-12 education here is bigger than some countries, and we’re not talking rinky-dink countries either.

“Federal, state, and local governments spend $720.9 billion, or $14,840 per pupil, to fund K-12 public education,” reports the website Education Data.

By contrast, the annual gross domestic product of oil giant Saudi Arabia in 2017 was only $687 billion, according to World Bank statistics. That same year, Switzerland, with its banks, watches, cheese, and army knives, raked in only $679 billion.

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Arizona Gains 66,000 New Taxpayers, Mostly from California

The Center Square
Phoenix, Arizona cityscape

Taxpayers are coming to Arizona from other states by the tens of thousands and bringing billions of dollars in annual earnings with them. 

The Internal Revenue Service released its annual migration statistics, a record of address changes by filers and their dependents between tax years. The data released in late May reflects changes from the 2018-2019 tax years, which symbolize moves that occurred between 2017 and 2018. Nationwide, 8 million people relocated to either another state or county. 

Arizona gained 218,736 new taxpayers in that time. Having lost 152,769, that’s a net gain of 65,967 exemptions from one tax year to the next. That’s nearly 1,000 more than the previous tax year.

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Supreme Court Denies Green Cards for Migrants Granted Temporary Protected Status

Cooper Moran

The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an effort to allow migrants who have claimed temporary humanitarian relief from deportation to obtain permanent residency.

In an increasingly rare, unanimous decision, the court states that the country’s immigration laws prevent migrants who entered the country illegally and now have Temporary Protected Status (TPS) from seeking “green cards” to stay in the U.S. permanently

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Former Treasury Official Sentenced to Prison for Leaking Russia, Manafort Docs

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Paul Manafort

A former senior Treasury Department official was sentenced to six months in prison for leaking thousands of confidential reports on financial transactions related to people tied to former President Donald Trump and Russia, including former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards, 42, pleaded guilty last year to a conspiracy charge. According to federal prosecutors, Edwards leaked the confidential documents to  BuzzFeed News reporter Jason Leopold. Leopold then shared thousands of suspicious activity reports with publications worldwide.

Court documents reveal that beginning in 2017, she leaked banking reports related to people being investigated in special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of foreign interference in U.S. elections. The material included reports concerning Manafort, his business associate Rick Gates, the Russian Embassy and Maria Butina, among others.

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GOP Gubernatorial Candidate Vernon Jones Files Amicus Brief in Lawsuit Against MLB

Cooper Moran

Vernon Jones, former state lawmaker and GOP candidate for Governor, filed a Amicus Brief in the Georgia lawsuit against Major League Baseball.

According to a tweet by Jones, the Brief is in support of a lawsuit filed by the Job Creators Network for damages lost in response to the decision to move the MLB All-Star Game from Atlanta. The MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred decided to pull the game because he claimed the new law restricted voting access.

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Commentary: Fighting Back in a Woke World of Cancel Culture

Admin
Empty office

By now there are enough “cancel culture” stories to fill volumes. After my own story about standing up to a woke mob – and succeeding – went viral on Twitter, I decided to speak out, because I am convinced that Americans need more encouraging stories about standing up to cancel culture, and information on how they can do it themselves.

In order to withstand attacks, you’ll need to be armed with an understanding of the ideas in play, and the courage to stand up to bullies. I hope my story can help give you both.

My story began in 2010, when my husband and I founded a nonprofit organization that trains people around the world who are providing care for survivors of trauma. We were pleased with the success of our organization for the first several years, but around 2016, we noticed a change.

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Professor Wilfred Reilly and Author of Taboo: 10 Things You Can’t Talk About, Discusses His Career and Contribution to Red White and Black

Julie Carr
Wilfred Reilly

Monday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Professor Wilfred Reilly of Kentucky State, author of Taboo: 10 Things You Can’t Talk About, and contributor to the newly released book Red, White and Black to the newsmakers line to discuss what led him to pursue a career in academia.

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GOP Official Files Ethics Complaint Against Nikki Fried

Grant Holcomb
Nikki Fried of Florida

Chairman of the Leon County GOP, Evan Power, filed an ethics complaint at the end of last week against Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried. He claimed the violation stems from her failing to disclose more than $400,000 in income on official financial disclosure forms, which she quickly amended after her official gubernatorial campaign launch on June 1.

One of the sources of her income increase is from Ignite Florida, a consulting firm where she is sole proprietor and lobbies the marijuana industry. Specifically, she amended a 2018 financial statement on May 28 indicating she received $351,480 from the firm. Previously, she had to amend the same 2018 statements on January 30, 2020 saying she received $72,000 in 2018 income.

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Ohio Bishops Welcome Catholics Back to Sunday Mass

Peter D'Abrosca

For the first time since churches were shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic, Catholics in Ohio were welcomed back to Mass on Sunday. 

“As we move beyond the worst of the coronavirus pandemic and access to the COVID-19 vaccine has become more widespread, the time has arrived for the good of all the faithful when the general dispensation from the obligation to attend Mass on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation is no longer necessary,” a mid-May statement from the Catholic Conference of Ohio said. 

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Biden Budget Proposal Includes $83.7 Million for Norfolk Harbor Widening and Deepening Project

Eric Burk

Virginia’s Chesapeake Bay-area U.S. representatives and senators are highlighting $83.7 million for the Norfolk Harbor widening and deepening project in President Biden’s recently unveiled $6 trillion budget proposal. The budget provision is a response to a letter Virginia’s congressional and senate delegation sent to Biden in March requesting the funds.

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Gov. Whitmer Signs Executive Directive to Expand High-Speed Internet; Won’t Tell Price Tag

The Center Square

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has issued Executive Directive 2021-02, which will establish the Michigan High-Speed Internet Office (MIHI) with the intent of improving costs and access to high-speed internet.

The governor pointed to the ongoing pandemic as the precipitating event that necessitated the order.

“COVID-19 has only confirmed how the lack of high-speed internet access can cause too many Michiganders to struggle in their ability to engage in online learning, to use telemedicine to seek needed healthcare, to search for a new job or to take advantage of all the online resources,” Whitmer said in a statement. “A fully connected Michigan is essential for our state to reach its economic potential in the 21st century global economy.”

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Ohio Holidays Could Pack More Punch with Fireworks

The Center Square
Fireworks in the night sky

It may not come in time for the Fourth of July, but Ohioans could add some excitement to certain celebrations if a bill passed Wednesday by the Ohio Senate eventually clears the House and gets signed into law.

Senate Bill 113 would allow people to have consumer-grade fireworks in the state and set them off on certain days and holidays.

Ohioans would be allowed to set off fireworks on New Year’s Day; Chinese New Year; Cinco de Mayo; Memorial Day weekend; Juneteenth; July 3, 4 and 5, along with the Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays preceding and following; Labor Day weekend; Diwali; and New Year’s eve. Local communities, however, can eliminate any of those days or ban the practice entirely.

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University of Michigan Professors Recommend Taking Down Legendary Football Coach’s Name from Arena

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Yost Ice Arena

A committee of professors at the University of Michigan has recommended that the university strip the name of a former football coach from the university’s ice hockey arena.

Fielding Yost, the namesake of Yost Ice Arena, coached the Michigan Wolverines football team to multiple national championships during the first half of the twentieth century, but he had an adverse effect on the well-being of black athletes when he was active, the professors claimed.

“In naming the Field House after Yost, the University chose to place one man’s contributions to football and to athletics above the profoundly deep and negative impact he had on people of color,” wrote the President’s Advisory Committee on University History.

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Georgia GOP Censures Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger

Cooper Moran

The Georgia Republican Party passed a motion on Saturday at their state convention to formally censure current Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

“A censure is about as strong as it gets out of here, other than our votes at the ballot box which is the most important censure of all,” added Mike Crane, District 3 Chairman of the state party, before reading the language of the censure. 

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Primary Day: Democrats Pick Their Ticket, GOP Watches House Primaries in Districts 9, 83

Eric Burk

Virginia Democrats have been voting for months, but Tuesday is the final day of voting in the Democratic primaries for governor, attorney general, and lieutenant governor. The races have highlighted a contrast between progressive and establishment wings of the party, with battles over identity, past scandals, and private versus corporate campaign funding. But Tuesday’s voting includes both Democratic and Republican primaries for House of Delegates districts across the state.

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Minneapolis Council President: Critical Race Theory Should Be ‘Baked into Our Systems’

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Minneapolis City Council Member Lisa Bender

Minneapolis City Council President Lisa Bender said at a recent meeting that employees of color in Minneapolis have “been carrying the burden of white supremacy.”

In a May 28 meeting, Bender referred to an open letter which all city employees are invited to sign — anyone who signs the letter is acknowledging racism as a public health crisis, accepting responsibility for the “pain” they have caused as “stewards of the City of Minneapolis’s policies,” and recognizing that Minneapolis has been and continues to be harmful to the BIPOC community.

The letter was filed into the official city record and will be published on June 11 with the signatures of all who choose to sign, making it easy to know which employees decide not to sign the letter.

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