Search Results for: gas tax

Audit: Tennessee Volunteer Fire Chief Stole $20,000

Chris Butler

The former fire chief for the Keith Springs Volunteer Fire Department stole more than $20,000 from the fire department and used it on himself, according to a state audit released this week. Court officials indicted that man, Jamie Stephens, the audit went on to say. “Stephens withdrew thousands of dollars in cash from the fire department checking and savings accounts. He also used the department’s debit card to purchase items such as televisions, food, gasoline, groceries, tires for his personal van, and a vacation rental in Panama City Beach,” auditors said in a press release. “The theft also included $853 in fuel that was purchased on the fire department’s fuel account. Investigators reviewed the purchase dates and determined Stephens was not performing fire department duties, and he did not provide proper documentation to support the purchases.” In December 2017, the fire department’s board of commissioners met with Stephens about his use of the bank funds and fuel and placed him on probation. However, while on probation, Stephens continued to use the bank and fuel accounts for personal use, auditors said. The board of commissioners elected a new fire chief in March of last year. A Franklin County grand jury indicted Stephens this month on one count of theft over $10,000, the press release…

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DC Think Tank Calls on NBC to Stop Blacking Out Climate Skeptics

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by Chris White   A Washington-based think tank published an ad Tuesday pressing NBC News to stop blacklisting climate skeptics from debating aspects of global warming on the channel’s broadcasts. The Competitive Enterprise Institute created an ad campaign pushing NBC’s Meet the Press to include climate skeptics in future broadcasts discussing aspects of global warming. NBC refused to run a televised version of the 30-second ad on its Jan. 20 episode, according to a CEI press statement. “NBC has made it perfectly clear they have no interest in hosting an open debate on climate change or policy alternatives for the environment, as evidenced by their decision to reject both guests on-air and paid ads during the program to give expert views shared by millions of Americans,” CEI President Kent Lassman noted in a press statement Tuesday morning. The ads, which will run in The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, push back against Meet the Press host Chuck Todd’s decision to exclude so-called climate alarmists and calls for what CEI says is a real and open debate about the impacts of climate alarmism. Todd kicked off a Dec. 30 program with a promise to the audience: The show will…

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Former Congressman Jim Renacci Set to Launch ‘Ohio’s Future Foundation,’ a Non-Profit Focused on ‘Ohio First’ Policies

Andrew Shirley

Former Congressman Jim Renacci, of Ohio’s 16th district, has announced that he will chair a new organization aimed at advancing Ohio forward. The group is called Ohio’s Future Foundation. Their goal, according to their announcement package is to launch “large scale and highly targeted voter education and advocacy campaign(s)” that are intended to marshall public support for their key goals; “vocational education, energy growth advocacy, municipal income tax reform, healthcare reform, and infrastructure funding.” These issues, though diverse, are all key areas that are desperately underserved in Ohio. Skilled labor represents some of the most well paying and secure jobs in America that don’t require a college education. However, after years of diminishing vocational training in k-12 education (in favor of focusing on college attendance), there is a well documented “Skilled Labor Gap” in America. In states like Ohio, that skilled labor gap hits the hardest. Many state industry leaders feel note that a lack of skilled labor os one of the leading causes of Ohio’s failure to keep up with the economic growth of the country. Ohio’s Future Foundation aims to counter this with a twofold approach. Their first aim is to remove the stigma often associated with vocational training, presumably through a…

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Commentary: Socialism and the Vicious Circle of Child Marriage

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by Rev. Ben Johnson   She was the brightest girl in her class, and 13-year-old Maureen dreamed of an education that would get her out of the poverty that bogged down her hometown of Mudzi, Mashonaland, Zimbabwe. Her parents promised to pay her tuition – but her family hit hard times. Instead, her father married off the young adolescent to a middle-aged man. “When my parents told me about the marriage I couldn’t believe it, because they had always given me the impression that I was their most intelligent child and I would pursue my studies,” the child toldthe Guardian this month. “The man was abusive, he called me names and beat me several times, especially after I lost my baby.” She is far from alone. Approximately one-third of all girls in Zimbabwe end up as child brides, often traded for dowries so small the girls find them insulting. For instance, another Zimbabwean family gave their 14-year-old girl to an older man for less than 50 cents. But economically, families see more value in receiving even a pittance than from investing in their daughters’ human capital: educating them, teaching them skills, and preparing them to find employment … or even to finish raising…

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Trump Must Go to the Mat Over Liberal Judge’s Ruling On Census Question

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by Mike Gonzalez and Hans von Spakovsky   A Manhattan district court judge earlier this week blocked the Trump administration from adding a question on citizenship to the 2020 census, and in doing so has sought to weaken executive power while strengthening the administrative state. The Trump administration has one choice here: Overturn this judicial overreach through appeal. The decision was biased and based on selective evidence. It needs to be overturned and corrected at once. As Judge Jesse M. Furman of the Southern District of New York himself observed in his ruling, “Time is of the essence because the Census Bureau needs to finalize the 2020 questionnaire by June of this year.” [ The liberal Left continue to push their radical agenda against American values. The good news is there is a solution. Find out more ] The administration must therefore seek a stay at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and if that fails go straight to the Supreme Court for an expedited review. Shoddy Reasoning Furman, an Obama appointee, bought into the plaintiffs’ arguments that the citizenship question would lead to an undercount of illegal residents—and Hispanics in general—despite the lack of evidence supporting that claim. It is important to…

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Governor Bill Lee Delivers Inspiring Inaugural Address Short on Specifics

Chris Butler

NASHVILLE, Tennessee — Republican Bill Lee took the oath as governor on Saturday and then delivered a broadly inspiring, almost pastoral, inaugural address in a 15-minute speech that did not provide much in the way of the specifics of his agenda. The inauguration was held indoors at War Memorial Auditorium due to rain. Lee began his address with a compelling historical note that traced his own family’s history in Tennessee. “In 1796 a man and his young family made their homestead on the banks of the Cumberland River just up the way from here. That was the year that the great state of Tennessee was founded. And 223 years later and 50 governors later, we stand here on the banks of the Cumberland River, celebrating our history and anticipating our future,” the new governor said. A few minutes later, Lee identified the man. “The man that I spoke of was Charles Blaxton Lee, and he was my seventh great-grandfather.” Lee said we in Tennessee “stand here today beneficiaries not of great governments of the past but of the lives of the great men and women who have come before us. Men and women who forged difficult lives on the frontier who formed…

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EXCLUSIVE Charlie Kirk Commentary: Five Crazy Things the Government Pays for Other Than Border Security

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by Charlie Kirk   Democrats want you to think they’ve finally discovered a sense of fiscal responsibility in response to President Trump’s request for $5.7 billion to fund construction of the border wall. That’s preposterous. The same party that is even now pursuing multi-trillion boondoggles such as “Medicare for All” and the “Green New Deal” somehow believes it can convince the American people that its opposition to the wall is based primarily on a desire to be responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars, but Democrats’ newfound austerity is unconvincing in light of their consistent, long-standing obsession with wasteful spending projects.. In fact, the federal government spends hundreds of billions of tax dollars every year on all sorts of questionable programs, and eliminating even a handful of the most egregious examples would easily suffice to pay for the pittance that President Trump is seeking for border security. Here are just a few examples: #1 Yoga Classes for Federal Bureaucrats -In 2015, Senator Rand Paul’s office reported that $150,000 in taxpayer dollars were spent on yoga classes for federal employees. While most agencies require participants to pay for their own therapeutic exercises, others, including the Environmental Protection Agency, the State Department, and the…

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Tennessee House And Senate Committees Undergo Major Shakeups

Laura Baigert

NASHVILLE, Tennessee – On the third day of the 111th Tennessee General Assembly, leadership announced committee assignments in the House and Senate, upsetting the status quo before recessing from their organizational sessions until January 18. During the House Republican caucus elections in November, Glen Casada (R-Franklin) made a commitment that, as Speaker, he would restructure the subcommittee system to expand up on it as well as use the composition to capitalize on subject matter experts. After his election as Speaker earlier this week, Casada, who garnered votes from Democrat Representatives John DeBerry (Memphis), Johnny Shaw (Bolivar) and John Mark Windle (Livingston), promised partnership rather than partisanship. In the final moments of the two-hour floor session of the 3rd organizational day of the House during which the House Permanent Rules of Order for the 111th General Assembly were debated and voted on and mandatory Ethics and Workplace Discrimination & Harassment training were conducted, Speaker Casada announced the House committees, committee members and subcommittee chairs. Keeping to his previous promises, Speaker Casada increased the House standing committees and subcommittees to a total of 43, from the previous 28. All but two committees had one subcommittee previously, but with Speaker Casada’s restructuring, some…

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EPA Climate Model Shows ‘Green New Deal’ Would Avert a ‘Barely Detectable’ Amount of Global Warming

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by Michael Bastasch   Democrats are increasingly lining up behind New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s call for a “Green New Deal,” but few, if any, have talked about its actual impact on global warming. Even if all the Green New Deal’s goals were achieved, it would have a negligible, and likely immeasurable, impact on projected global warming, according to climate model simulation provided by a libertarian think tank. “I seriously think the effect would — at best — be barely detectable in the climate record,” Patrick Michaels, a climatologist with the Cato Institute, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. Cato developed its own “Carbon Tax Temperature-Savings Calculator” to estimate the amount of warming that might be averted through reducing greenhouse gas emissions, like carbon dioxide. The carbon calculator is based on the so-called “MAGICC” climate model simulator, developed by the National Center for Atmospheric Research with funding from the Environmental Protection Agency. So, how much warming would a “Green New Deal” avert by the end of the century? Slightly under 0.14 degrees Celsius, according to Cato’s temperature calculator. “The year-to-year variation is very close to the total amount of warming that would be ‘saved’ by 2100, according to EPA’s own…

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Commentary: The ‘Green New Deal’ is a Trojan Horse for Socialism

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by Jarret Stepman   Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is ready to tax the rich to make her Green New Deal a reality. “People are going to have to start paying their fair share in taxes,” the recently elected New York Democrat told TV show “60 Minutes” in an interview set to air Sunday. Speaking of prior decades’ taxation rates in the country, Ocasio-Cortez added, “Once you get to the tippy tops, on your 10 millionth dollar, sometimes you see tax rates as high as 60 or 70 percent.” '60 MINUTES' SUNDAY: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez suggests taxes as high as 70% on the wealthiest to pay for a "Green New Deal." "If that's what radical means, call me a radical," @AOC tells @AndersonCooper. pic.twitter.com/fcw2YtdeSD — Steven Portnoy (@stevenportnoy) January 4, 2019 It shouldn’t be a surprise that the avowed “democratic socialist” went with the predictable “tax the rich” formula in order to pay for a massive government program to combat climate change. But it would hardly be good news for most Americans if Ocasio-Cortez got her way. In fact, such a scheme would mean that her constituents in New York City would pay a max income tax rate of 82.6 percent, as Americans…

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Commentary: Our Exhausted American Mediocracy

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by Victor David Hanson   The unlikely 2016 election of Donald Trump—the first president without either prior political or military office—was a repudiation of the American “aristocracy.” By “rule of the best” I mean the ancien régime was no longer understood to suggest wealth and birth (alone), but instead envisioned itself as a supposed national meritocracy of those with proper degrees, and long service in the top hierarchies of government, media, blue-chip law firms, Wall Street, high tech, and academia. The 2016 election and refutation of the ruling class did not signal that those without such educations and qualifications were de facto better suited to direct the country. Instead, the lesson was that the past record of governance and the current stature of our assumed best and brightest certainly did not justify their reputations or authority, much less their outsized self-regard. In short, instead of being a meritocracy, they amount to a mediocracy, neither great nor awful, but mostly mediocre. This mediocracy is akin to late 4th-century B.C. Athenian politicians, the last generation of the Roman Republic, the late 18th-century French aristocracy, or the British bipartisan elite of the mid-1930s—their reputations relying on the greater wisdom and accomplishment of an…

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Commentary: Ten Great Economic Myths

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by Murray N. Rothbard   Our country is beset by a large number of economic myths that distort public thinking on important problems and lead us to accept unsound and dangerous government policies. Here are ten of the most dangerous of these myths and an analysis of what is wrong with them. Myth #1 Deficits are the cause of inflation; deficits have nothing to do with inflation. In recent decades we always have had federal deficits. The invariable response of the party out of power, whichever it may be, is to denounce those deficits as being the cause of our chronic inflation. And the invariable response of whatever party is in power has been to claim that deficits have nothing to do with inflation. Both opposing statements are myths. Deficits mean that the federal government is spending more than it is taking in taxes. Those deficits can be financed in two ways. If they are financed by selling Treasury bonds to the public, then the deficits are not inflationary. No new money is created; people and institutions simply draw down their bank deposits to pay for the bonds, and the Treasury spends that money. Money has simply been transferred from…

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2018 Saw a Global Revolt Against Climate Change Policies

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by Michael Bastasch   Despite increasingly apocalyptic warnings from U.N. officials, 2018 has seen a number of high-profile defeats for policies aimed at fighting global warming. Politicians and voters pushed back at attempts to raise energy prices as part of the climate crusade. It started in June with election of Ontario Premier Doug Ford. Ontario residents overwhelmingly voted Ford’s conservative coalition into power on a platform that included axing the Canadian province’s cap-and-trade program. Ford said his first priority upon taking office would be to “cancel the Liberal cap-and-trade carbon tax.” Ford then joined a legal challenge led by Saskatchewan against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s policy of a central government-imposed carbon tax on provinces that don’t have their own. Carbon tax opponents called Trudeau’s plan an attempt to “use the new tax to further redistribute income, which will increase the costs of this tax to the economy.” Roughly ten thousand miles away in Australia another revolt was brewing. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull saw his power base crumble within days of failing to pass a bill aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Turnbull’s so-called National Energy Guarantee to reduce energy sector emissions was opposed by a group of conservative members of…

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Once a Stable and High-Paying Career, Workers at Nuclear Plants Now Fear for Their Jobs

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by Jason Hopkins   Nuclear plant engineers are highly trained professionals with high-paying salaries, but the beleaguered nuclear industry is putting their jobs at risk all across the country. The country’s nuclear fleet is suffering under a grim market. Competing against cheap natural gas and subsidy-backed renewables, many nuclear facilities — weighed down by archaic regulations — have been rendered unprofitable. Six nuclear plants have closed since 2013. The future does not look much brighter, with nine other plants expected to shut down by 2025. “The thought of it really stresses me out,” Christine DeSantis said to The Wall Street Journal in a report published Friday. “Who knows what’s going to happen to nuclear power in the next couple of years.” DeSantis is a mechanical engineer working at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station located in southern Pennsylvania. A nuclear mechanical engineer’s average salary is over $85,000, according to PayScale, with the top 90 percent of earners raking in over $130,000. The plant — which has been in operation since the 1970s — is slated to close in 2019, taking with it hundreds of well-paying jobs and $1 million in annual taxes. “The value of these jobs is that…

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Ellison Names Outspoken Anti-Trump Immigration Lawyer As Second in Command

Anthony Gockowski

Attorney General-elect Keith Ellison (D-MN) announced Friday that he has named John Keller to serve as his chief deputy attorney general. Keller currently oversees the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota, a vehemently anti-Trump non-profit that provides legal services to illegal aliens and refugees. According to a press release from Ellison’s transition team, Keller began working at the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota (ILCM) in 1998 as a staff attorney, and has served as its executive director since 2005. “In that time, he has transformed ILCM from a small, regional legal-services organization with five staff to Minnesota’s leading provider of free, high-quality, and comprehensive legal, policy, and education services with five offices statewide, 32 employees—a majority of whom are from immigrant, refugee, or mixed-family backgrounds—more than 350 trained pro bono attorneys, and a statewide and national reputation,” the press release explains. Keller and the ILCM have become outspoken critics of the Trump administration and its immigration polices, and have repeatedly taken actions to thwart Trump’s agenda in Minnesota. Last December, for instance, Keller helped secure $250,000 in taxpayer funds from Hennepin County to launch a legal defense fund for county residents facing deportation. The fund was criticized by Republican gubernatorial candidate…

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Nine States Back Environmentalists Trying to Shutdown Search for Oil in Atlantic

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by Tim Pearce   Nine states are intervening in a lawsuit against the Trump administration for approving oil and gas companies to search for oil and gas deposits in the Atlantic Ocean. Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh announced Thursday the states would join environmental groups in a lawsuit to prevent the Trump administration from allowing seismic testing off the coast of South Carolina. “The National Marine Fisheries Service has issued what are called incidental harassment authorizations. They would, by their own terms, result in harm to hundreds of thousands of whales and dolphins and porpoises,” Frosh said. “The permits eliminate a major obstacle to testing and we content that the authorizations are illegal.” Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina and Virginia accompanied Maryland in intervening in the lawsuit. The NMFS, an agency under the Commerce Department, issued “incidental take” permits Nov. 30 allowing oil and gas companies to conduct the tests. Environmental groups sued the federal government Nov. 11 to prevent the seismic testing, which involves air guns booming in the ocean seconds apart for days at a time. Environmentalists contend the permits violate the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Marine Mammals Protection Act and other regulations. The federal…

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‘Climate Alarmism,’ ‘Propaganda’ Fill US Agency Websites, Report Finds

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by Tim Pearce   Multiple federal agencies are pushing agenda-driven climate science on their websites, according to The Heartland Institute. The Trump administration has taken a public stance supporting fossil fuels and questioning the scientific “consensus” of climate change research. Parts of federal websites should be overhauled or taken down completely to conform to the administration’s stance on climate change and fossil fuel energy production, Heartland says. Trump administration agencies continue to push “climate alarmism” and publish “propaganda” on their websites despite President Donald Trump’s position on climate change and the use of fossil fuels, according to The Heartland Institute. Heartland researchers audited the websites of federal agencies for information that seemed to contradict the public stance of President Donald Trump and his administration’s agenda to expand American energy production, including fossil fuel production. Heartland researchers found numerous examples of federal agencies pushing an anti-fossil fuel narrative, according to sections of a draft report obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation. “Federal executive branch websites are littered with political propaganda instead of objective science,” Heartland senior environment and energy policy fellow James Taylor said in a statement to TheDCNF. “To the extent scientific issues are discussed, they are presented in a…

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Megan Barry Earns Beacon Center of Tennessee Pork of the Year Prize

Chris Butler

Former Nashville Mayor Megan Barry’s choice to spend nearly $175,000 in taxpayer money on an extra-marital tryst just earned her top billing in the Beacon Center of Tennessee’s 2018 Pork Report. Beacon, a Nashville-based free market think tank, releases a report detailing government waste, fraud, and abuse in Tennessee once a year. Beacon released this year’s report Monday. The disgraced former mayor won Pork of the Year thanks to an online poll on Beacon’s website, according to a press release. “We won’t get into the personal aspect of the affair,” said Beacon President Justin Owen, in a series of online videos that accompanied the think tank’s press release. “What matters to us is that Mayor Barry did this on the taxpayers’ dime. She used taxpayers’ money to pay overtime pay to her bodyguard so she could be with him more often. The mayor of Nashville doesn’t need security in Paris, France or in Greece, but, ultimately she used taxpayer money to further her affair and that is why she pled guilty to felony theft as a result.” As for other government excess, Beacon cited a company in Memphis, ServiceMaster, that received $5 million just to move to another part of…

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Commentary: The Breakdown of Family and Religion Explains France’s Social Unrest

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by Star Parker   As France is gripped by civil disorder, many commentators identify, quite correctly, as the culprit the outsized burden that France’s bloated welfare state places on its citizens. According a recent report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the highest tax burden in the industrialized world is in France—46.1 percent of gross domestic product. In the United States, it is 27 percent, which includes taxes paid at all levels of government—federal, state, and local. Welfare state spending in France is 32 percent of GDP, almost double that of the U.S., meaning that $1 out of $3 generated by the French economy is captured by the government and redistributed into social/welfare spending. [ The liberal Left continue to push their radical agenda against American values. The good news is there is a solution. Find out more ] But let’s recall that all this government was put in place in the name of making life better for France’s citizens. There’s plenty of analysis regarding the French situation, as there is in our own country, about how to streamline and reform government programs and deliver the same quality of services at a reduced spending and tax burden on citizens. But…

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Michael Cohen Sentenced to Three Years in Federal Prison

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by Chuck Ross   Michael Cohen, the former personal attorney for Donald Trump, was sentenced to three years in prison by a judge in New York on Wednesday. The sentence, handed down by U.S. District Court Judge William Pauley, is lower than prosecutors’ recommendation that the longtime Trump fixer receive slightly less than between 51 and 63 months in prison. Pauley cited a “smorgasbord” of Cohen crimes before announcing the jail term. Cohen, 52, pleaded guilty on Aug. 21 to tax evasion, bank fraud and making illegal campaign contributions over his payments to Stormy Daniels, the porn star who claims she had an affair with Trump in 2006. Cohen paid Daniels $130,000, he claims at the direction and in coordination with Trump. Legal analysts have debated for days whether Trump is in legal jeopardy, with some observers saying that he could be impeached or even indicted after leaving office. Cohen created shell companies both to avoid paying taxes on his taxi business as well as to make the payment to Daniels. Trump defended the payment on Tuesday, telling Reuters that he did not view it as a campaign contribution. “Michael Cohen is a lawyer. I assume he would know what he’s doing,” he said…

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Enviros File Lawsuits to Stop Trump’s Approval of Surveys for Oil Deposits

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by Chris White   Environmental groups are suing to prevent the Trump administration from approving seismic survey testing for oil and gas reserves off the South Carolina coast. Oceana and the Sierra Club argued in legal filings Tuesday that the Commerce Department’s approval of seismic testing violates the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act, among other regulations. “Allowing seismic blasting at this scale in these waters is not consistent with the laws that protect our oceans,” Natural Resources Defense Council Director Michael Jasny noted in a press statement shortly after the lawsuits were announced. Such leases could lead to exploratory drilling for the first time in several years. Acoustic tests involve boats tugging rods pressurized for sound and emitting jet engine-like booms seconds apart for days. The exercise effectively uses reflected seismic waves to measure the Earth’s subsurface, but the technique also poses risks to marine life sensitive to sound waves. Oil producers are supportive of the approval process. The American Petroleum Institute released a Nov. 15 report that shows tapping oil and natural gas reserves in federal waters could be worth $1.5 billion in tax revenue to South Carolina over two decades. Tax revenue from the…

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The Paris Climate Agreement is ‘Dead,’ Declares Former Top UN Delegate

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by Michael Bastasch   Saudi Arabia’s former lead delegate to United Nations climate talks said the Paris agreement to fight global warming is “dead,” ending what he called a “big conspiracy the world created.” Mohammed Salim Al Sabban, also a former adviser to Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, celebrated what he called the unofficial “death” of the Paris accord. “Are you still following the dead Paris Agreement?” Al Sabban tweeted in response to former New York Times write Andrew Revkin. “They will go from one meeting to another forever till it’s officially announced its death. Don’t be selective when you attack the Saudi UNFCCC position. It is unfair,” Al Sabban wrote. Revkin was commenting on news that the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Russia and Kuwait refused to “welcome” the findings of a U.N. climate report released in October. The report said carbon dioxide emissions would need to decline 45 percent by 2030 to avoid warming greater than 1.5 degrees Celsius. Nice hearing from you Mr.Revkin. It has been long time.Are you still following the dead Paris Agreement?They will go from one meeting to another forever till it’s officially announced its death. Don’t be selective when you attack the…

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Commentary: The Green Agenda Burns to Ashes in Paris

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by Jarrett Stepman   A riot is an ugly thing. The anarchical mayhem in the streets of Paris in recent days paint a picture of a fractured society with deep-seated problems—a breakdown of the fragile yet essential rule of law. – 70% of French voters believe democracy doesn't work well in France– Only 11% trust political parties– 24% trust the media– 63% of young French were ready for a large-scale revolt The gilets jaunes protests were almost inevitable https://t.co/hGrlVTsnyJ pic.twitter.com/cPcaybyNfl — Bloomberg Opinion (@opinion) December 3, 2018 While we’ve come to expect such things in France, there are specific reasons why these protests have erupted in the last month. The “climate” agenda, peddled as a means to save the planet and reduce inequality, is being exposed in France as an agenda inherently at odds with the interests of middle- and working-class people. Last year, a wide range of American and international media, celebrities, and activists excoriated President Donald Trump for pulling the United States out of the international Paris climate agreement. Trump said in 2017 that he would put “no other consideration before the well-being of American citizens” and that he would reject an agreement that would force taxpayers to…

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Al Gore Combating Climate Change With 24-Hour Live-Stream

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by Michael Bastasch   Former Vice President Al Gore kicked off his live 24-hour broadcast calling for solutions to man-made global warming Monday as waves of protests against the very types of policies Gore champions rocked major French cities. “All of it is felt most keenly by the world’s most disadvantaged people,” Gore said during the live broadcast Tuesday from southern California’s Los Angeles State Historic Park. “It’s up to each and everyone of us now to demand that our leaders do more.” “A dramatic shift is underway, but it must be accelerated by new policies,” Gore said, pushing for policies to phase out fossil fuels and use more green energy. Gore noted this year’s 24-hour broadcast coincides with the United Nations climate summit in Poland, which is meant to further hash out the Paris climate accord agreed to at the 2015 conference. The theme of this year’s 24-hour broadcast is climate and health, Gore told the “Today Show” in an interview Tuesday. "The problem is still getting worse…this is a global emergency," – @algore talks climate change during a 24-hour livestream event to raise awareness. pic.twitter.com/1Flb4wAPaE — TODAY (@TODAYshow) December 4, 2018 But Gore’s concern for the Paris accord…

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UN Climate Summit to Emit More C02 Than 8,200 American Homes Do in a Year

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by Michael Bastasch   This year’s United Nations climate summit will have a carbon footprint equivalent to the yearly electricity usage of more than 8,200 American households, according to the international body’s own figures. The U.N. estimates the summit, called COP24, will emit 55,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide — the very greenhouse gas U.N. officials are trying to keep from accumulating in the atmosphere. Based on U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) figures, that’s the equivalent of more than 11,700 cars driving for one year or 728 tanker trucks worth of gasoline. That amount of CO2 emissions is also the same as 8,243 American homes for an entire year, according to EPA. However, that’s a low-ball estimate because it only includes the emissions from the conference itself, and not emissions associated with the thousands of people who flew to the meeting in Katowice, Poland. More than a few summit-goers, including celebrities, likely flew private jets. When those emissions are factored in, COP24’s carbon footprint is likely much higher, according to environmental economist Richard Tol. “It is probably unusually high as Katowice would require multiple stops for anyone who’s not from Europe,” Tol told The Daily Caller News Foundation. The high…

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Commentary: Trump’s Energy Policies Are Paying Off for Workers and Consumers

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by Richard McCarty   With the liberal media busy looking for excuses to attack President Trump and his administration, you might have missed some good news on the energy front. American energy jobs are being created, gas prices are dropping, energy imports are dropping and energy exports are rising. Since Trump took office, there have been thousands of coal mining jobs created; and tens of thousands of oil and gas industry jobs have been created. Many of these jobs pay well. Thanks to Trump, coal’s future is looking brighter. In the early months of the Trump Administration, the Interior Department ended the moratorium on new coal leases on public lands that the Obama Administration had put in place. In FY 2017, coal production on federal lands increased by more than 12 percent. While environmentalists work to shut down reliable coal plants reducing domestic needs for coal, coal exports increased by 61 percent last year as coal shipments to Europe rose and shipments to Asia more than doubled. The domestic natural gas industry is growing rapidly. Last year, for the first time since the Eisenhower era, the U.S. has become a net exporter of natural gas. The U.S. is expected to…

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Trump ‘Willing’ to Shut Down Government Over Border Wall Funding

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President Donald Trump says he would “totally be willing” to partially shut down the government next week if he does not get more funding for a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border to thwart Central American migrants from entering the country. The U.S. leader, who almost daily unleashes verbal attacks on migrants trying to cross into the United States, told Politico he is insisting that $5 billion for wall construction be included in measures Congress needs to approve to keep several federal agencies open after their current spending authority expires December 7. Opposition Democrats have said they will approve $1.6 billion for the wall, leaving the two sides far apart. Some Republicans are also opposed to Trump’s wall, which he vowed in his 2016 presidential campaign would be paid for by Mexico, although he now wants U.S. taxpayers to foot the bill. “I am firm,” Trump said of his $5 billion demand. “I don’t do anything … just for political gain,” Trump said. “But I will tell you, politically speaking, that issue is a total winner. People look at the border, they look at the rush to the police, they look at the rock throwers and really hurting three people, three…

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GM’s Mass Layoff Includes Eliminating a Hybrid Car Obama Once Championed

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by Chris White   General Motor’s decision to restructure and layoff thousands of employees Monday includes eliminating a hybrid vehicle former President Barack Obama once called the car of the future for the Detroit company. GM said Monday that it will cut roughly 14,000 people in North America and will idle factories in Michigan, Ohio, Maryland and Canada. The layoffs come as the company focuses on manufacturing electric vehicles over gas-powered sedans. Politicians and ordinary citizens are blasting the decision. “It’s all about greed. It’s all about putting more in their pockets,” one employee said, according to CBS. “The bad thing is to get this news on the day after we come back from Thanksgiving,” another employee noted. “GM owes the community answers on how the rest of the supply chain will be impacted & what consequences its disastrous decision will have” Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, wrote in a tweet following the announcement. The bulk of the cuts include 8,000 salaried jobs, making it the largest cutbacks since GM went bankrupt and was bailed out by taxpayers during the 2008 financial crisis. One victim of the move is the Chevrolet Volt, a hybrid car Obama once championed. “I got to get…

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Commentary: Four Problems With the New Climate Change Report

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by Nicolas Loris   If you’re like me, you’re happy the White House released the latest version of the National Climate Assessment on Black Friday. Publishing the 1,700-page report the day after Thanksgiving saved me from unwanted dinner conversations about our planet’s impending climate doom. But if your aunt calls you up this week spouting claims of mass deaths, global food shortages, economic destruction, and national security risks resulting from climate change, here’s what you need to know about this report. 1. It wildly exaggerates economic costs. One statistic that media outlets have seized upon is that the worst climate scenario could cost the U.S. 10 percent of its gross domestic product by 2100.  The 10 percent loss projection is more than twice the percentage that was lost during the Great Recession. The study, funded in part by climate warrior Tom Steyer’s organization, calculates these costs on the assumption that the world will be 15 degrees Fahrenheit warmer. That temperature projection is even higher than the worst-case scenario predicted by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In other words, it is completely unrealistic. 2. It assumes the most extreme (and least likely) climate scenario. The scary projections in…

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Migrant Caravan Triggers Protests in Tijuana

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Hundreds of Tijuana residents congregated around a monument in an affluent section of the city south of California on Sunday to protest the thousands of Central American migrants who have arrived via caravan in hopes of a new life in the U.S. Tensions have built as nearly 3,000 migrants from the caravan poured into Tijuana in recent days after more than a month on the road, and with many more months ahead of them while they seek asylum. The federal government estimates the number of migrants could soon swell to 10,000. U.S. border inspectors are processing only about 100 asylum claims a day at Tijuana’s main crossing to San Diego. Asylum seekers register their names in a tattered notebook managed by migrants themselves that had more than 3,000 names even before the caravan arrived. On Sunday, displeased Tijuana residents waved Mexican flags, sang the Mexican national anthem and chanted “Out! Out!” in front of a statue of the Aztec ruler Cuauhtemoc, 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) from the U.S. border. They accused the migrants of being ungrateful and a danger to Tijuana. They also complained about how the caravan forced its way into Mexico, calling it an “invasion.” And they voiced…

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Commentary: To All the Disillusioned Bredesen Supporters, Illinois Awaits

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by Marshall Towe   One of the enduring beauties of America is our freedom of movement. Citizens easily migrate between States, unregulated, for things such as schooling, employment, retirement or just better weather. After reading the November 8th, 2018 article in The Tennessee Star by Chris Butler chronicling many Bredesen supporters taking to social media with threats of leaving Tennessee, there is a clear message to be conveyed: Illinois wants you! For years now, hundreds of people per day immigrate to Tennessee, one of the fastest growing States, while Chicago, in Cook County, in the State of Illinois have topped the list of most population lost in each the these category for years. For those Bredesen supporters upset with the election result and the direction of Tennessee, nothing can beat a debt-ridden Illinois, where its $225 billion debt is tops in the country, with the added benefit of a bond rating one notch above junk. Tennessee, with its constitutionally mandated balanced budget and State Government with the fiscal responsibility to manage its budget to an annual surplus while accumulating a rainy day fund, is not for you. It is a guarantee that Chicago will welcome and embrace you with open arms,…

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No ‘Green Wave’ This Election as Voters Reject Climate Change Ballot Measures

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by Michael Bastasch   Not only did a Democratic “blue wave” fail to materialize on Tuesday night, the “green wave” of major global warming and energy-related ballot measures largely failed to get voter approval as well. Voters in Arizona, Colorado and Washington rejected measures aimed at fighting global warming, despite two of those states being in Democratic hands. The “Green New Deal” pundits gushed over in Washington state went down in flames, with voters overwhelmingly rejecting a state ballot measure to tax carbon dioxide emissions, despite its support from Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee. Washingtonians voted against the carbon tax initiative 56 percent to 43 percent, according to state election officials. “The voters have spoken,” Tom Pyle, president of the free market American Energy Alliance, said in an emailed statement. “It’s time to listen to them and focus on policies that expand the availability, affordability, and reliability of energy, rather than on policies that makes energy more scarce, more expensive, and less reliable,” said Pyle, a former Trump transition team leader opposed to carbon taxes. Environmentalists argue the oil industry’s $30 million cash influx into the ballot measure campaign tipped the scales, compared to the more than $15 million spent by…

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James Agresti Commentary: Voters of All Parties, Ages, and Genders Are Broadly Misinformed

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by James D. Agresti   At a recent “get-out-the-vote” rally in Las Vegas, former first lady Michelle Obama declared that people don’t have to be informed in order to vote. All they need, she said, is to “be a citizen,” “have opinions,” and want “a say in what happens.” She emphasized, “I’ve been voting since I was 18 years old—and trust me—I didn’t know nothing about nothing at 18 years old.” In contrast, James Madison—the father of the Constitution and primary author of the Bill of Rights—stressed that voters “must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.” Failure to do this, he said, will produce government that is “a farce or a tragedy; or, perhaps both.” The results of a new scientific survey indicate that voters of all ages, political parties, and genders are following Obama’s lead instead of Madison’s. Moreover, the survey shows that many voters are not only uninformed about major issues—they are positively misinformed. Those are the findings of an annual, national poll commissioned by Just Facts, a non-profit research and educational institute. The poll was conducted by an academic research firm that used sound methodologies to assess U.S. residents who regularly vote. While most surveys…

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Nearly 100 Conservative Big Shots Voice Support for Trump’s CAFE Reforms

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by Chris White   More than 90 prominent conservatives signed a letter Wednesday urging President Donald Trump to push forward on major reforms to a California program created decades ago to regulate fuel consumption. Former Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina and tax reformer Grover Norquist were among a slew of conservatives to encourage dramatic changes to the state’s Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards. Trump believes California’s regulations hurt businesses and citizens. CAFE standards were established in 1975 during a time of grave national concern over fuel scarcity and America’s reliance on imported energy, the letter notes.  A review of the purpose and effectiveness of existing CAFE standards is long overdue. The letter also notes that the 2012 standards are proving too ambitious, costly, and simply not viable for automakers from a practical or safety standpoint, before highlighting reports from the National Auto Dealers Association showing mandates increase the cost of vehicles by an average of $3,000. Trump etched out a proposal in July seeking to remove California’s ability to set its own standards. The move will effectively cap federal fuel economy requirements at 2020 levels, which under current law requires at least a 35-mpg average. Former President Barack Obama placed the…

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Why More Americans Are Moving to Smaller Cities

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by Dora Mekouar   More Americans are moving to smaller cities in search of a better quality of life. They’re leaving places like Los Angeles, Chicago and New York for mid-sized cities such as Phoenix and Las Vegas, according to an analysis of data from the U.S. Census Bureau. A huge draw for these second-tier cities is that the cost of housing consumes a much smaller chunk of people’s salaries. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than half of the people who move do so for housing-related reasons. They’re looking for a new or better home, cheaper housing, or to buy a home rather than rent. It costs about $4,100 a month to rent a place in Manhattan. That’s almost two-thirds of New York City’s median household income of $83,500. Buying a home is even more out of reach. The average cost of a home in the area is $1.1 million. More than half a million people left the New York boroughs of Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens over a five-year period between 2012 and 2017. In Los Angeles, the metropolitan county with the largest outbound net domestic migration, rent costs about $2,100 a month — about 38…

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The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Announces a Changed Standard for Carbon Limits, Demands ‘Urgent Action’

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by Julie Kelly   A new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change offers a timely reminder that much of the Left’s doomsday hysteria can be traced to the modern-day environmental movement. Like Democrats’ dire warnings that everything from tax cuts to net neutrality will result in mass casualties, the climate cabal’s Grim Reaper estimates are not just wrong and constantly changing—they defy reality. Ever since Donald Trump wisely scuttled the meaningless Paris Climate Accord last year, climate alarmists have been desperate to revive the public’s interest in this once-dominant political issue. As concern about climate change has waned, the activists who are determined to use it as leverage to exert more state control over our lives have downgraded the planet’s prognosis once again. The IPCC now warns that if the rise in global temperatures is not limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial estimates, millions of humans will suffer a horrific fate beginning in 2040. Most scientific agencies that track climate change insist the Earth’s temperature has already increased just shy of 1 degree C since the late 1800s and blame human activity for most of the rise. That means, according to the IPCC, we only have another…

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‘Don’t Screw Us Over,’ Ohio Workers Warn Candidates

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by Ramon Taylor   Brandy Corwin likes that she can now wear makeup and nice clothes to work. That is because she is no longer working on the assembly line at the General Motors plant in Fort Wayne, Indiana. “I was laid off multiple times, and having a family, you can’t rely on that,” she said. For the past five months, Corwin, 28, has been working at Credit Adjustments, Inc. (CAI), a debt collection agency headquartered in her hometown of Defiance, Ohio, an hour outside the city of Toledo. Corwin was a third-generation manufacturing worker and thought the assembly line was her fate. But now, she no longer has to work overtime and weekends to make ends meet. “I finally have a good work-to-home life balance,” she said, “and I didn’t have that before.” Her two children “love seeing me come home dressed up,” Corwin said. “My son, he compliments me all the time: Wow, Mommy, your hair looks really nice,’ or ‘Wow, Mom, I love your dress,’ because I’m not walking home in dirty jeans and steel-toe boots.” CAI opened its first area call center in downtown Toledo last January, providing 60 new job opportunities, with the goal of adding…

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‘Big Green, Inc.’: Inside The $4 Billion Wealthy Liberal Foundations Handed To Environmentalists

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by Michael Bastach   Major foundations handed nearly $4 billion to global warming activists, anti-fossil fuel campaigners and other environmentalists over the past eight years, according to a database debuted Monday. The website Big Green, Inc. tracked $3.7 billion in commitments from major grant-making foundations to environmental causes from 2008 to 2016. It’s a project of the free market Institute for Energy Research and is based on nonprofit tax filings. IER president Tom Pyle said the vast web of funding detailed by Big Green, Inc. shatters the notion environmentalists are locked in a David versus Goliath-like struggle against energy companies. “The truth is the environmental left is a deep-pocketed and powerful force in American politics that is working to stop all natural gas, oil, and coal production in the United States,” Pyle said in a statement. IER’s project found, for example, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation gave out $2 billion in grants to environmental causes, including climate activism, between 2008 and 2016 — the largest grant-maker in the database. The Energy Foundation handed out $444 million in grants and the Sea Change Foundation doled out $373 million. The Energy Foundation got funding from liberal billionaire Tom Steyer’s charitable trust from 2009…

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Nashville Convention and Visitors Corp CEO Makes $792,000 Per Year

Chris Butler
Butch Spyridon

Butch Spyridon, the CEO of the Nashville Convention and Visitors Corp makes a great deal of money in annual salary every year, even more so than his counterparts in other large cities. As Tennessee Watchdog reported, Spyridon has used taxpayer-funded resources — even money meant for the 2010 flood relief — to assist the Convention and Visitors Corp and his career. In the past five years, Spyridon got his salary doubled to $792,000, the Tennessean reported. He now makes more than what his peers in Orlando, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and New Orleans make, according to the paper. “Spyridon’s pay exceeds that of CEOs with larger budgets and in cities with higher costs of living, including those in San Francisco and Los Angeles,” the paper reported. “Among his perks are paid memberships to social and health clubs.” Former Nashville Metro Council member Emily Evans told the paper Spyridon makes more than the police chief, fire chief and the head of the public health department. The paper credited Spyridon with recruiting the Titans to Tennessee and, among other things, spearheading the city’s Fourth of July celebrations. “The Music City Center and the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp. are funded largely by hotel room taxes.…

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Tennessee Might Bow Out of Nationwide Plan to Arm Teachers

Chris Butler
armed teachers

Public schools nationwide might use federal money to arm teachers in class, but don’t look for  Tennessee to participate. “With very few exceptions, it is unlawful for anyone in Tennessee – educator or otherwise – to possess a firearm on school grounds,” said Sarah Gast, spokeswoman for the Tennessee Department of Education, in an emailed statement to The Tennessee Star. “Two sections of Tennessee law provide a very limited exception.” Officials in what Gast described as distressed rural counties may authorize some school employees to carry concealed weapons, if that district meets certain eligibility requirements. Only two of Tennessee’s 147 school districts meet that criteria — Wayne County Schools and Pickett County Schools, Gast said. “As of last year, neither had chosen to allow employees to carry concealed weapons,” Gast said. “However, they would not be required to notify us if they changed their policy.” Gast did not say how or why those two districts meet the criteria. As part of the second statute, educators would have to meet substantial requirements to carry a firearm and only if district officials allow it, Gast said. “It essentially states that if an educator is also in law enforcement or has prior service…

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Complaint: Too Many White Republicans Accompanied Steve Cohen to South America

Chris Butler

Now we know why U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, (D-TN-9) traveled to South America at taxpayer expense. As reported, Cohen and eight other congressmen undertook a super-secret mission to meet with Guyanese leaders last week. But many locals reportedly resented the visit. There were just too many white Republican men, according to published reports. Cohen, of course, is a Democrat. The only other Democrat was Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.-52). The remainder of the group were all GOP. According to the Caribbean News Now, the trip was a “fact-finding mission to continue stronger engagement between the two countries.” “During the meeting, discussion centered on Guyana’s political stability, security, border issues with Suriname and Venezuela; Guyana’s emerging oil and gas sector and environmental issues,” the website reported. Geologists estimate 13.6 billion barrels of oil and 32 trillion cubic feet of natural gas exist in the Guyana-Suriname Basin, the website reported. Exxon officials have already signed an oil deal with Guyanese-leaders. The Guyanese media portrays the Exxon agreement as “another form of economic-colonization.” Guyana borders Venezuela. According to the BBC, Venezuela’s economy is in freefall due to hyperinflation, power cuts, and food and medicine shortages. A recent New York Post article blames socialism. As…

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Commentary: The Party Of Free Stuff And Illegal Aliens Is Not The Workingman’s Friend

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by George Rasley   Democrats once passed themselves off as the party of the working guy; pro-union, pro-American manufacturing, pro-infrastructure and anti-communist, but today’s Democratic Party looks nothing like the party of Franklin Delano Roosevelt or John F. Kennedy. In the age of Donald Trump Democrats have become, not the party of the American working man, but the party of free stuff and illegal aliens. Leading Democrats, such as Senators Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio have called for the abolition of the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency – which would in effect open America’s borders to the entire world. Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders has long-advocated debt-free college and the Democrats’ marquee congressional candidate, New York Democratic-Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has made free college and Medicare for all hallmarks of her campaign. Just this week the Democratic Party in Florida nominated Far Left Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum for Governor. Gillum, an outspokenly progressive African-American, is the candidate of Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders and Far-Left billionaire Tom Steyer, founder of the “Need to Impeach” super PAC. According to reporting by The New Yorker’s Benjamin Wallace-Wells, Gillum’s campaign platform calls for a steep corporate-tax…

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The SAT Is Feeding Students Solar Industry Propaganda

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SAT test

by James D. Agresti   The famed SAT, or Scholastic Assessment Test, is a college readiness exam taken by more than 1.6 million students per year. In May of 2018, the College Board, which owns and operates the SAT, required test takers to read an article that claims: the cost of solar energy installations “fell by more than 50 percent between 2010 and 2013.” “solar power is now competitive with other energy sources in many markets.” solar energy is a “ray of sunshine for the U.S. economy.” This article appeared in the reading portion of the exam, which supposedly uses “authentic texts selected from high-quality” sources. Yet, all of the assertions above are rooted in solar industry propaganda that is at odds with the facts. Moreover, this disinformation misleads students in ways that can cause serious harm. Cost Declines In contrast to the SAT’s claim that the cost of solar installations fell by more than 50% from 2010 to 2013, the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory reports that “system prices of residential and commercial PV [photovoltaic solar] systems declined 6%–12% per year, on average, from 1998–2014….” This amounts to a decrease during 2010 to 2013 of 17%…

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Commentary: DC Pundits and Their ‘Prevailing Wisdom’ Trumped by Voter Wrath and Rage at Elites

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Jim Jordan, Donald Trump

by Jeffery Rendall   These days there’s little doubt the prevailing wisdom of most establishment media pundits and so-called political “experts” is that President Donald Trump is a liability to Republican candidates heading into this November’s all-too-crucial midterm elections. According to the Reverso Dictionary, the word “prevailing” means, one, common, current, customary, established, fashionable, general, in style, in vogue, ordinary, popular, prevalent, set, usual, widespread; or, two, dominant, influential, main, operative, predominating, preponderating, principal, ruling. Since America’s ruling class elites all share a desire to preserve the status quo in Washington, the last suggested definition – “ruling” – is the most apropos for conservatives. Change is what the establishment fears most and that’s exactly what they’d get if the leadership on Capitol Hill were shaken up by this year’s district-by-district results. Signs are everywhere GOP poohbahs especially dread the prospect of losing control of the party’s House leadership. Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan’s announced run for Speaker has everyone in establishment-land in a tizzy. Perhaps because of the elites’ panic political commentators are already poopooing Jordan’s chances for an internal coup d’état. A.B. Stoddard wrote last week at Real Clear Politics, “There’s a good chance Trump doesn’t appreciate the nuances and dynamics of leadership races…

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Object of Deception: MSM Forgets the Facts as ICE Arrests Illegal Wanted for Murder in Mexico

Julie Carr
Steve Gill

On Monday’s Gill Report – broadcast live on WETR 92.3 FM in Knoxville – Tennessee Star Political Editor Steve Gill was repulsed by the MSM’s coverage, or lack thereof, regarding the recent arrest of illegal alien and murder suspect Joel Arrona Laura and his illegal wife by ICE while speeding  to the hospital to deliver their fifth anchor baby. Gill said: On Saturday, dozens of media outlets across the country breathlessly reported that federal immigration custom enforcement agencies ICE, arrested an illegal alien who was simply taking his wife to the hospital to deliver their baby. They were appalled that ICE would be so irresponsible, so cruel, so heartless as to arrest this man when all he was doing was taking his wife to deliver a baby by c-section. Now interesting they left out a big detail. A huge detail. Some might even say a ‘bigly’ detail. Seems the man was a wanted murder suspect. Agents arrested murder suspect Joel Arrono Laura when he stopped to get gas when taking his wife, Maria del Carmen Venegas to the hospital so she could give birth to their fifth anchor baby. Yeah, both of them are illegally in this country, both of…

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Feds Give Memphis Airport $43 Million, Despite Traffic Decrease

Chris Butler
Memphis Airport

Federal taxpayers will shell out $43.3 million to improve the Memphis International Airport, despite reports traffic has fallen dramatically in recent years. U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Memphis, announced the funding, which came from the Federal Aviation Administration. Exactly $28.5 million of that will reimburse airport officials for reconstructing two taxiways. The remaining $14.7 million, meanwhile, goes to what Cohen called “the rehabilitation of the Memphis International Airport’s Concourse B.” Northwest Airlines was once the airport’s most dominant carrier. Then Delta gobbled it up. Delta decided it only needed one hub in the South, in Atlanta. That decision cost Memphis almost two-thirds of its passengers, according to a recent New York Times story. The result — three concourses are left and most of its gates are unused. Airports officials will spend $219 million to close and renovate Concourse B and mothball concourses A & C. No one at Cohen’s office returned requests for comment Wednesday. Memphis International Airport spokesman Glen Thomas, in an emailed statement, said the airport qualified for the federal funding, even though it might seem like a ghost town. These funds, Thomas said, involved federal Airport Improvement Program money. Under federal law the aviation system generates that money.…

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The Renewable Fuel Standard is the Obamacare of the Energy Industry

Tennessee Star Staff
Gas up the car

By Printus LeBlan After Scott Pruitt resigned as EPA Administrator, the cheers from K street could be heard around the country. The lobbyist camp led the fight against Pruitt because since coming into the position, Pruitt set his sights on one of the biggest sacred cows in D.C., the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). Just because he is gone, that doesn’t mean the fight over the RFS should end. The RFS was created in 2005 as a result of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The RFS mandates a certain amount of renewable fuel is blended with gasoline. The renewable fuel is mostly corn ethanol. The regulation was further updated in 2007 with the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA). This bill was another gift to the renewable fuel industry as it increased the amount of renewable fuel to be blended. EISA had the goal of increasing the amount of renewable fuel by well over 300 percent from 11.1 billion gallons in 2009 to 36 billion gallons in 2022. A windfall for King Corn. However, when Scott Pruitt came to the swamp, he sought to change the RFS. Pruitt knew the RFS did not do what it promised and…

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Commentary: GOP Rule Number One: Never Take Agenda or Voting Tips from a Democrat

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President Trump w White House Press

by Jeffery Rendall   Don’t you just love it when someone who has no expertise or authority into your (personal or professional) business gives you advice on how to conduct yourself and run your life? Such was the case when former New York Democrat congressman Steve Israel wrote about the gloomy prospects for the Republican Party last week. In a piece titled “Requiem for the Republican Party,” Israel grumbled at The Hill, “…Republican leaders rightly rebuked Trump’s kumbaya with the Kremlin. House Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and others expressed, in proper Washington parlance, their disagreements with the president’s moral equivocations. But it may be too late. They have planted the invasive seeds of demagoguery, and now they cannot prune them with a few soft ‘tsk-tsks.’ “I never agreed with the Grand Old Party on everything when I served as a member of Congress. But I found accord with it on promoting a Western democratic order in the world, maintaining a strong military to defend freedom, and opposing authoritarianism. I supported the global leadership of the Bush administration in combating AIDS. “I hope that party is not over and replaced by a frothing coalescence of our worst instincts. I…

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Tennessee Department of Education Under Fire For Administrative Incompetence

Julie Carr
Steve Gill

Tennessee Star Political Editor Steve Gill was flabbergasted on Monday’s edition of The Gill Report – broadcast on Knoxville’s 92.3 FM WETR – regarding the repeated incompetence displayed at the Tennessee Department of Education. Gill commented, “The Tennessee Department of Education has stepped in it again.” He continued: One of the things the Department of Education has had to set up under state law, it is a requirement of state law. Is a Pre-K and Kindergarten portfolio assessment program. Now apparently the Tennessee Department of Education failed to set up the program appropriately and now they’ve had some computer glitches that have caused them to not have the assessments of teachers done in an appropriate, timely or accurate way. And they’ve apparently randomly assigned one on a scale of five, to some teachers because they couldn’t figure out what to do so they just gave them one’s. Now this is supposedly not going to effect the teachers retention of their job, their pay raises, or anything else.  But a lot of teachers aren’t really believing that.  Professional Educators of Tennessee has some more details about this whole controversy, you can find out more there.  Meanwhile, the Tennessee Teachers Association, the…

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Commentary: Is ‘Uncle’ Joe Biden a Threat to Steal Trump’s #MAGA Voters?

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Joe Biden

by Jeffery Rendall   “But Barack, I want to run, I need to run…” The words hung in the air as Joe Biden clung to the edge of his chair in the Oval Office in late 2015. The vice president fiddled nervously waiting a response from the president, a normally impatient man who’d just spent fifteen minutes methodically droning on about how it was Hillary’s turn to rule now and every Democrat recognized it, blah, blah blah… That’s why Clinton is practically unopposed within the party this year, Obama insisted – who could realistically challenge her, that doddering idiot Bernie Sanders? He’s not even a Democrat! Pfft. Obama mused. “Let’s just keep peace in the party, Joe. When I knocked the ‘likeable enough’ Hillary off her pedestal in ’08 we all agreed she’d get the next go-round after I’d finished fundamentally transforming the country. If you get in now it’ll ruin everything.” Biden sighed and submissively stared out the window, obviously unpersuaded by the man who’d failed miserably to halt the rise of the oceans and unite the entire world. Obama thought to himself, ‘Here it is, I’ve tucked away my enormous ego for that old bat and now my left-hand man is bugging me to go against…

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