Monday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, guest host Gulbransen welcomed Tennessee AG’s Chief of Staff Brandon Smith in studio to discuss the new strategic litigation unit in the Tennessee AG office.
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by Glenn Ellmers You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I’m talking about? ~ Morpheus, “The Matrix” Pop culture references go stale pretty quickly, so it’s usually best to avoid them. But when a movie made 20 years ago reveals a genuinely interesting and important truth, it’s worth bending the rule. In 2016, Donald Trump was elected president of the United States by millions of people who knew – or sensed – that something in American political life was deeply wrong or broken; and that Donald Trump sensed this as well and wanted to do something about it. Most of these voters couldn’t fully articulate what was wrong (neither in many cases could Trump!), but they had begun to doubt the essential truth of what they were being told. The official narrative about our government, our public life, and our culture – the story told by Washington, Hollywood, Wall Street, and Harvard – was not quite a lie, perhaps, but many had become…
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by George Rasley, CHQ Editor The New York Times recently published what it touted as a bombshell anonymous op-ed by a “senior” Trump administration official that trashed President Trump for being among other things “amoral” and showing “little affinity for ideals long espoused by conservatives: free minds, free markets and free people.” The op-ed, which we have read and re-read several times, is all about Trump’s style, as opposed to the substance of his policy accomplishments. Indeed, it reads like nothing so much as a #NeverTrump manifesto ghostwritten by a NeverTrumper, like Bill Kristol or Jonah Goldberg, rather than a senior White House or administration official with inside knowledge of Trump’s decision-making process and the alleged failures thereof. It will surprise no one who voted for Donald Trump that he does not hew to the Republican establishment’s idea of “presidential” style – that’s one reason why we voted for him. And Trump understands that better than the #NeverTrump gang in and out of the halls of government. One of the more compelling (and hilarious) moments of Trump’s recent speech and rally in West Virginia was when he did an imitation of a “presidential” establishment Republican robotically walking back and forth behind the…
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by Joseph Sunde In just the last year, the regulatory apparatus of the federal government has endured a range of healthy threats and corrections. Approximately 1,579 regulatory actions have been withdrawn or delayed, according to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, and that wave is set to continue. “Agencies plan to finalize three deregulatory actions for every new regulatory action” this fiscal year, a recent report noted. “We’re here today for one single reason,” said President Trump said last December, holding a pair of scissors aside a symbolic mountain of papers: “to cut the red tape of regulation.” It’s a welcome development for many businesses, who have struggled amid a growing string of onerous and arbitrary rules and measures. But it’s also a movement that could help restore a bit of hope for republican democracy—taking power away from an unelected, unaccountable regulatory regime and shifting it back to Congress and its constitutions. As the Hoover Institution’s Adam J. White explains in a recent PolicyEd video, the administrative state has, up until now, largely shielded itself from the eyes and ears of the people it’s supposed to serve: As we regulate more economic activity, these federal agencies take an ever larger role in day-to-day governance. The…
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by Rick Manning On May 2, the Daily Caller reported, “House Democrat Warns Trump Team: You’ll End Up ‘Sullied’ Like Ronny Jackson,” writing, “Democratic Tennessee Rep. Steve Cohen warned on Wednesday that members of President Donald Trump’s inner circle will end up ‘sullied’ like former White House physician Adm. Ronny Jackson — if they stick with the president for long.” On May 2, the Washington Examiner reported, “Ex-Trump aide Michael Caputo warns: Investigations espousing ‘punishment strategy’ to deter future Trump-like candidates, stating, “Michael Caputo, a former Trump campaign aide, said that he doesn’t think anybody should work on a Republican campaign ever again, unless they are compensated for any legal fees that may come out of it. Speaking out Wednesday evening, Caputo also said he believes there is a ‘punishment strategy’ to ‘destroy’ Trump and deter any other billionaires in the future from thinking about running for president. Just out of an interview with special counsel Robert Mueller, Caputo told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson he’s certain that federal investigators are fixated on collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Caputo said he firmly believes there was never any collusion. Caputo also griped about the crushing legal costs of being a witness in the Russia…
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First they tried to beat him at the polls. They lost miserably. Then they unleashed America’s most powerful and penetrating espionage apparatus against him at the height of the presidential campaign. And got caught red-handed. Once he assumed the White House, they tried beating him with a sprawling federal investigation into “Russia collusion” – only to…
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Yes, the Deep State is real, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said Tuesday. The libertarian-leaning former presidential candidate said on “The Laura Ingraham Show” that the term — maligned by Democrats and the liberal mainstream media — accurately describes how unelected officials in national security positions exercise power without checks from America’s elected representatives.
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A large bipartisan majority of Americans believe that Washington is controlled by a “Deep State” of unelected government officials, according to a new poll. The Monmouth University Poll found 60 percent of respondents feel that unelected or appointed government officials have too much influence in determining federal policy. The belief is consistent regardless of party affiliation, with 59 percent of Democrats, 59 percent of Republicans and 62 percent of independents agreeing that appointed officials hold too much sway in the federal government.
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by CHQ Staff Once known as the Nation’s premier law enforcement agency, today the Federal Bureau of Investigation is mired in corruption, incompetence, careerism, and brazen political dirty tricks. There was a brief glimmer of light when Christopher Wray was appointed to replace his corrupt predecessor, James Comey, but that light has faded. Wray has proven himself to be unequal to the task of cleaning up the corruption and careerism that have become endemic at the Bureau’s DC headquarters and his leadership has not resulted in higher standards of competence or focus at the field level where “known wolf” terrorists and psychopaths are routinely ignored until they kill. The latest example of FBI incompetence – failing to follow-up credible citizen information that Nikolas Cruz, the Parkland, Florida school assassin, had made threats to shoot-up his school and kill law enforcement officials, prompted Florida Governor Rick Scott to demand Director Wray’s resignation or firing. And in a society where personal responsibility, honor and integrity were still traits of the ruling class Wray would have tendered his resignation after the preventable bloodbath in Florida, but careerism, not honor or integrity is apparently the principle guiding Mr. Wray. The one good thing that…
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