Bipartisan ‘Kids to College Act’ Introduced in Response to College Admissions Scandal by Reps. Green, Gonzalez

U.S. Reps. Dr. Mark Green (R-TN-07) and Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX-15) on Monday introduced a bipartisan bill to allow prospective students to reach agreements with colleges to pay for tuition with future earnings. The “Kids to College Act” bill is a response to the recent college admissions scandals. It authorizes “income share agreements,” where students borrow money from the school to pay tuition and repay the college or university with a percentage of future earnings, according to a press release from Green’s office. This way, colleges and universities are incentivized in helping students secure good paying employment after they graduate. Green’s and Gonzalez’s bill comes in response to multiple media outlets, including The New York Times, last week reporting a major federal sting that resulted in at least 50 people being arrested. Officials said the scheme revolved around a college admissions company allegedly being bribing university officials to admit students on false pretenses as members of sports teams or allegedly cheating on standardized tests, according to The Times. Those who were busted included actress Lori Loughlin, famous for “Full House,” Loughlin’s husband and fashion designer J. Mossimo Giannulli, and actress Felicity Huffman, according to a story by the Los Angeles Times. Green tweeted,…

Read the full story

Far Left Anti-Electoral College Plan Building Momentum

by CHQ Staff   What would you say if we told you Democrats have a plan to change the Constitution without going through the arduous process of amending it according to the process set forth in Article V of our government’s founding document? Well, get ready, because they do, and according to our friend Hans von Spakovsky, senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation and a former commissioner on the Federal Election Commission, their anti-Constitutional plan is gaining ground. Democrats have long opposed the Electoral College because with overwhelming margins of victory in high-population states like California they could dominate future presidential elections based on the popular vote, so they have concocted a plan to try to bypass the constitutional amendment process by constructing a multi-state compact to allocate their Electoral votes according to the popular vote. von Spakovsky says the movement going on in all 50 states is sponsored by the National Popular Vote, an advocacy group in California, that claims they can get rid of the Electoral College’s effects by having the states agree to a state compact. “The state compact they are pushing is for state legislatures to agree that in future presidential elections they will not…

Read the full story

Commentary: Learning About America’s Forgotten Civil Rights History

by Marc DeJager   Early in the morning last Saturday, a group of 12 Heritage Foundation interns (including myself) boarded a bus bound for Holly Knoll, the manor house of Robert Russa Moton. Most of us had never heard of Moton before. This is unsurprising, as he was “the forgotten civil rights leader,” in the words of professor Brian McGovern of Rappahannock Community College. We disembarked from the bus into a steady rain at Holly Knoll, and quickly hurried inside to hear from McGovern about the life and accomplishments of Moton. Moton is arguably the most important African-American leader of the early 20th century. Both his parents had been slaves. His mother taught him to read, and he was determined to become an educator. He graduated from the Hampton Institute in 1890—a historically black college in Virginia—and was immediately offered a position there as a teacher. There, he served until 1920 when, upon the death of his friend and fellow civil rights activist Booker T. Washington, he was named principle of the Tuskegee Institute, another historically black university. Moton was a staunch advocate for the strategy of accommodation in civil rights, believing that black Americans should show their white neighbors…

Read the full story

Under Trump, US Economic Freedom Rises Significantly

by Anthony B. Kim   The U.S. economy is roaring like no other time in recent memory. The job market is hot, unemployment is down to record lows, and small business optimism is soaring. But this newfound dynamism didn’t come from nowhere. It required a package of market and consumer-friendly reforms passed by Congress and adopted by the Trump administration. These reforms have boosted economic freedom. According to The Heritage Foundation’s 2019 Index of Economic Freedom, America’s economic freedom has seen a dramatic boost—from 18th place in the world to 12th place in the span of just one year. America’s score ticked up by more than a full point from last year, reaching the highest level in eight years. The annual index—now celebrating its 25th year—provides an overall snapshot of almost every country’s level of economic freedom. It takes into account a variety of factors, like taxation, regulation, and trade. It is relevant to our job prospects and the prices we pay for goods and services, not to mention what kind of appliances and cars we can choose and buy. Higher economic freedom scores tend to correlate with faster growth and broader economic expansion, as well as higher incomes and…

Read the full story

Fire Chief Who Was Fired for Marriage Views Wins Major First Amendment Victory

by Monica Burke   In a major victory for free speech, the city of Atlanta has awarded former Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran with $1.2 million after violating his First Amendment rights.Cochran was a highly decorated firefighter who served as the U.S. fire administrator after President Barack Obama hand-picked him for the job. In 2010, he agreed to return to his former position as fire chief of Atlanta at the invitation of Mayor Kasim Reed.In 2012, he received the “Fire Chief of the Year” award for “pioneering efforts to improve performance and service within the Atlanta Fire Rescue Department.” But his career came to an abrupt halt in 2015 when Reed suspended him without pay for 30 days and ultimately fired him. The reason? Cochran’s beliefs about marriage. Cochran had written and self-published a 162-page Christian devotional—on his own time—that included a few paragraphs on the biblical view on sex and marriage. He shared the book with a few colleagues, which was when activists complained. The mayor then construed Cochran’s belief that marriage is between one man and one woman as discriminatory and ordered him to attend “sensitivity training.” The mayor also launched an investigation into whether Cochran had ever discriminated…

Read the full story

Phil Bredesen Solar Company Might Not Survive in Pure Free Market

Phil Bredesen

Solar power companies, including Phil Bredesen’s Silicon Ranch, wouldn’t make much of a mark without do-gooder government officials giving them taxpayer money, government incentives, and other generous benefits, an expert said. That’s because less than 2 percent of America’s electricity comes from solar power, said Nick Loris of the Heritage Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. “Without these government benefits, you would see a lot less because anytime you subsidize something you’re going to get more of it,” Loris told The Tennessee Star. “If you got rid of all energy subsidies, not just the ones for solar, but all the ones for fossil fuels, for wind, for nuclear, then I think, in a true free market, solar’s role in the electricity generation portfolio would be pretty minimal.” But, Loris went on to say, if market forces dictate that solar power is cost competitive and if people are willing to pay more for it, then they ought to have that right. “Those decisions are from an investment perspective and by a consumer choice perspective,” Loris said. “They shouldn’t be driven by the federal government and gambling with other people’s money.” But if those subsidies and other benefits for solar power are…

Read the full story

Expert: New Phil Bredesen Solar Project Unlikely to Save Energy

Phil Bredesen

An expert says solar power isn’t as effective an energy saver as people in government might lead Tennesseans and others across the country to believe. That expert, Nick Loris, of the Heritage Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, also said solar is more expensive. He also said it’s only hobbled along as far as it has because of government subsidies and tax incentives. Loris said this on Thursday, only a few days after a company with direct ties to Tennessee Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Bredesen reportedly launched a new solar initiative in northeast Tennessee. Bredesen did this through his company Silicon Ranch. As reported, Bredesen personally benefitted from solar energy policies he enacted while Tennessee’s governor. Electricity generation from solar power, Loris said, is only 1.3 percent of all electricity generation — even with government subsidies to give it a boost. “It is still more uneconomical than other energy sources,” Loris told The Tennessee Star. “Not only do you have to pay to back it up when the sun isn’t shining, but a lot of times you have to build new transmission lines and to get the solar from the places that it’s being built to where you need the…

Read the full story

The Heritage Foundation’s New President is a Black Woman and a Conservative

Hillary Clinton was supposed to break the glass ceiling, which she said has kept a woman from becoming president, but the Heritage Foundation, a conservative public policy think tank based in Washington, D.C., has actually done it. Their new president is Kay Coles James, a woman, an African-American and a conservative, who fits no one’s mold.…

Read the full story

Conservative Author Lee Edwards: Trump Is One of Us

President Donald Trump was not born in the conservative movement, but he is doing conservative things, says Lee Edwards, a fellow in at the Heritage Foundation’s Institute for Constitutional Government. Edwards, a longtime conservative and historian of the conservative movement, told LifeZette on Tuesday that Trump is one of the good conservative guys, even though he…

Read the full story

Ryan Anderson of Heritage Foundation Gives Lecture on Religious Liberty at Union University

Religious liberty is a fundamental human right, one that even Americans who aren’t religious should value, Ryan Anderson of The Heritage Foundation said at Union University earlier this month. Anderson spoke at the Southern Baptist school in Jackson, Tennessee, Sept. 12 as part of an annual Constitution Day lecture series, according to a school news release. Constitution Day is celebrated Sept. 17 and honors the signing of the U.S. Constitution on Sept. 17, 1787. Religious freedom is guaranteed in the First Amendment. “All of us have a human right to be able to seek out the truth about God on our own, come to conclusions about the truth about God on our own, and then live our lives in conforming with that truth as we understand it,” said Anderson, a senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Anderson said there are limits to the right of religious freedom if it is used to harm others or infringes on their rights. It gets complicated in issues such as same-sex marriage and gender identity. What’s important is to remember that people can disagree without being bigots and that government coercion isn’t the answer, Anderson said. “There is anti-gay bigotry in the United…

Read the full story

Memphis Fast Food Workers Rally For $15 Per Hour Minimum Wage

  Some fast food restaurant workers in Memphis walked out Monday to call for raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour, reports WREG News Channel 3. Similar Labor Day protests were held across the country. The current federal minimum wage is $7.25. In Tennessee, the state minimum wage is the same as the current federal minimum wage. In Memphis, a group in front of the McDonald’s on Poplar Avenue waved signs at 6 a.m. reading, “Show me $15 & a union” and “#Fightfor15.” There group included workers from McDonald’s, KFC, Wendy’s and Church’s Chicken. The Memphis workers were joined by local Black Lives Matter activists, representatives with Workers Interfaith Network, IBEW and the Copper Coalition, and state Rep. G.A. Hardaway (D-Memphis). The group later moved to the Taco Bell at Poplar and Belvedere, and then up Evergreen to Trinity United Methodist Church, which was hosting a picnic. #WeShutItDown #FightFor15 #UnionStrong pic.twitter.com/Ewp9YXabv6 — Show Me $15 (@Show_Me15) September 5, 2017 “Memphis workers in the Fight for $15 stressed their demand not just for $15 an hour, but for union rights in order to fix the economic and political systems in the U.S. that are rigged to benefit big corporations over working…

Read the full story

Heritage Action Sentinels, An Active Force To Be Reckoned With in Middle Tennessee, Expanding

NASHVILLE, Tennessee – A group of grassroots activists of Heritage Action, known as Sentinels, have been active and growing for some time in Rutherford County and have reached the point of spawning a new group in Nashville/Davidson County. Heritage Action is the grassroots activist sister organization to Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank founded in 1973.  Heritage’s more than 100 researchers perform timely and accurate research on critical policy issues and shares the findings with key stakeholders including elected and appointed policy makers, the media and the public, including Heritage Action and the Sentinel community. Heritage Action came into being in 2010 when Heritage Foundation’s research on The Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, needed to be taken to a level beyond information into activism. In 2014, Heritage Foundation launched The Daily Signal, a conservative electronic publication that combines news and research that can be republished, as done by The Tennessee Star. Heritage Action, with the mission of holding Congress accountable to conservative principles, may be best known for its Scorecard which measures votes, bill sponsorships and legislative activities to gauge a member’s conservatism. Long-time grassroots activists Katherine Hudgins and Jackie Archer founded the Rutherford County Heritage Sentinels and…

Read the full story

The Heritage Foundation And Jim DeMint: Both Vital To The Conservative Movement

Richard A Viguerie, CHQ Chairman President Trump’s shout-out during his 100-day rally to Heritage president Jim DeMint, “I want to really thank Heritage … and also from Heritage Jim DeMint, it’s been amazing,” reminds me of just what an important asset a strong and independent Heritage Foundation has been to the conservative movement. I was there, so to speak, at the beginning of the Heritage Foundation and what many people in Washington Jim DeMint Heritageseem to have forgotten is that Heritage was founded to be a movement conservative force independent of the Republican Party and establishment Republican leaders. My good friend the late Paul Weyrich, then press secretary for conservative U.S. Senator Gordon Allott of Colorado, was one of the moving forces behind the creation of the Heritage Foundation. One of the other founders was Ed Feulner, then administrative assistant to Congressman Phil Crane, for whom I did the direct mail when he was first elected to the House in a Special Election in 1969. Paul had the idea for the Heritage Foundation after becoming frustrated with the overly academic posture of the American Enterprise Institute, then the leading conservative think tank in Washington. Paul, and many others in the…

Read the full story

Jim DeMint Resigns as President of The Heritage Foundation, Ed Feulner to Return as Interim

The Heritage Foundation’s board of trustees, by a unanimous vote, has asked for and received the resignation of president and CEO Jim DeMint, revealed in an open letter to the organization’s membership released late Tuesday afternoon by board chairman Thomas A. Saunders III. “The board elected Heritage Founder Ed Feulner as president and CEO while we…

Read the full story