Ramaswamy Lays Out Recalibrated America First Foreign Policy Vision: ‘We Will be Uncle Sucker No More’

As he takes heat for proposing that the United States roll back aid to Israel in pursuit of stronger regional relationships for the key American ally, GOP top tier presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy says he wants a new approach to U.S. relations with friends and foes alike.

And he’s harkening back to the founders’ vision of avoiding “entangling alliances” to get there. 

Read the full story

Commentary: Thomas Jefferson’s Meaning of ‘The Pursuit of Happiness’

The idea of the “pursuit of happiness” is in our societal DNA. Yet, this “unalienable right,” immortalized in the Declaration of Independence, has often puzzled people. What exactly did Jefferson mean?

Most people think of happiness as feeling good, but that is not what Jefferson meant. Pleasure and happiness are not the same. Our happiness does not depend upon everything going right in our life or getting what we want.

Read the full story

University of Virginia Student Newspaper Demands Removal of Thomas Jefferson’s Name from Campus

At the University of Virginia, the student-run newspaper issued a public call to remove the name of the university’s founder, Thomas Jefferson, from campus.

According to Fox News, the op-ed in The Cavalier Daily claimed that Thomas Jefferson “glorifies racists, slaveholders and eugenicists,” while offering no evidence to support this assertion.

Read the full story

In Regent University Commencement, Youngkin Criticizes Higher-Ed Conformity; Earle-Sears Named Alumna of the Year

In a commencement speech at Regent University, Governor Glenn Youngkin told graduates to follow two guides: mentors and a “compass that points us in the direction of core values that define us.” He told them that they were not called to comfort, and criticized conformity in academia.

“Sometimes we are called to speak up, to say unpopular things, to invite ridicule and scorn. If I could offer one critique of higher education today, and I mean this in the most global sense, it’s that there’s too much group-think, too much conformity to modern doctrine, too much intolerance that rears itself in the form of a canceled culture,” Youngkin said.

Read the full story

Commentary: The War on Thomas Jefferson

Portrait of Jefferson in his late 50s with a full head of hair

The final decision, after years of debate, was made on Oct. 8 to remove from the New York City Council chambers the statue of the man we all know to have been a dreaded slaveholder—to the tune of 600 over his lifetime—Thomas Jefferson.

Despite that, writing at Bari Weiss’s Substack, political science professor Samuel Goldman, with whom I concur, is less than happy.

“The removal is disgraceful. Unlike monuments to Confederate leaders that display them in full military glory, Jefferson is depicted as a writer. Holding a quill pen in one hand and the Declaration of Independence in the other, he is clearly being honored for composing an immortal argument for liberty and equality.”

Read the full story

Virginia General Assembly Votes to Remove Statue of Former Governor Harry Byrd, Sr.

The Virginia Senate voted 36 to 3 Tuesday to remove the capitol’s statue of former Democratic Governor Harry Byrd, Sr. His legacy is marked by his expansion of Virginia’s economy and roads, and is tarnished by a battle to block desegregating schools. The House of Delegates had already voted in favor of the bill, HB 2208, introduced by Delegate Jay Jones (D-Norfolk.) Governor Ralph Northam is expected to approve the bill.

Read the full story

Commentary: D.C. Mayor’s Committee Recommends Removing Jefferson Memorial and Washington Monument

Holy Cow, the cancel culture has sunk even further. Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, Zachary Taylor, Alexander Graham Bell, Ben Franklin, Woodrow Wilson, and many more names from American history are now personas non grata in Washington DC. A committee formed by the mayor has recommended taking their name off city-owned buildings.  They also recommended removing federal assets such as the Jefferson Memorial and Washington Monument.

D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser formed the District of Columbia Facilities, and Commemorative Expressions Working Group, also known as the DC FACES Working Group.

Read the full story

Commentary: Are States That Refuse to Reopen Losing the Consent of the Governed?

What happens to a government when the consent of the governed breaks down?  History has many instances of this some ending with peaceful transformation, others with successful revolution as in our own history and still others with military crackdowns as we currently see in Hong Kong.

Thomas Jefferson wrote in our nation’s founding document, the Declaration of Independence, which was written as a series of reasons why the American colonists no longer accepted the rule of King George III.  The opening two paragraphs of this seminal document used to be memorized by school children as part of their school exercises, a practice which was largely abandoned in the 1960s. So as a refresher, here is what Jefferson penned:

Read the full story

JC Bowman Commentary: Lives, Fortunes, and Honor

US flags w airman

JC Bowman writes: Freedom should never be taken for granted.  Today we are debating the very concept of what it means to be a citizen of the United States of America.  While many citizens are very passionate about our country, others seem disillusioned and some openly hostile.  It is why the Declaration of Independence is such an important document. It expresses what it means to be an American. 

Read the full story

Commentary: The Turbulent True History of the ‘Good Ole Days’ of Politics

Founding Fathers, Reagan-Bush, Trump

by Jeffery A. Rendall   It’s only natural in times of political turmoil – like what we’re experiencing now and for as long as I can remember – that people harken back to yesteryear for a more tranquil period when everyone got along swimmingly and went out for drinks after each encounter regardless of the rhetorical fights they engaged in earlier that day. We all recall the good ‘ol days as if there was never any conflict; people had manners “back then” and even political enemies found it within their beings to bury the hatchet in their minds rather than in someone else’s back. But was it really that way? A thorough perusal of history reveals that today’s political brawls aren’t much apart from those of the past. Even America’s Founding Fathers were hardly immune from the backbiting and triviality that’s so much in evidence today. Take James Madison and Alexander Hamilton for example. Jay Cost wrote at National Review last week, “One point that I do not linger on in [my new book] is how the two of them came to ascribe bad motives to each other. In Madison’s reckoning, Hamilton was a would-be monarchist who sought the destruction of the republic itself.…

Read the full story

JC Bowman Commentary: Dark Money + Union Money = Corrupt Politics

Dark Money

This election cycle we have already seen an influx of unaccountable cash, known as dark money, which pours into our state. Outside money hurts more than it helps. Tennessee voters were not swayed by big spending outsiders. It is worth noting the message the outsiders bring is almost always negative. If you don’t think this is an erosion of democracy, you’re not thinking about it hard enough. The formula is simple: Dark Money + Union Money = Corrupt Politics

Read the full story

Texas School District Considering Renaming Schools Honoring Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson Over Slavery Debate

Ben Franklin’s face graces U.S. currency, but Texas officials may soon remove his name from one middle school over a “connection to Confederacy.” Dallas Independent School District is conducting an investigation into numerous schools in the wake of a national debate over monuments and historical figures associated with slavery. The move, which may also affect Thomas…

Read the full story

Gov. Bill Haslam Calls for Removal of Bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest from the Capitol

Tennessee Star

  Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam is advocating for the removal of a bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest from the Capitol in Nashville. “My position on this issue has not changed – I do not believe Nathan Bedford Forrest should be one of the individuals we honor at the Capitol. The General Assembly has established a process for addressing these matters and I strongly encourage the Capitol Commission and the Historical Commission to act,” Haslam said in a statement issued Monday. A Tennessee native, Forrest was a lieutenant general in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. Also a slave trader, Forrest was known for his brutality. According to some accounts, he became a Christian later in life and distanced himself from the KKK, which he helped start. Activists in many states are calling for the removal of Confederate monuments after violent clashes between white supremacists and leftist radicals on Saturday in Charlottesville, Virginia. Dozens of protesters gathered at the Capitol Monday to demand that the bust come down, according to Nashville Public Radio. The bust was installed in the 1970s and ever since there have been calls periodically to remove it, the last time being after the Charleston church shooting in…

Read the full story

Commentary: Is Culture Still Relevant?

The United States is a diverse country, racially and ethnically, as well as in how people choose to organize themselves socially and politically. It can be argued that our public schools are integrally situated to communicate society’s values, such as individual responsibility, patriotism, integrity, objectivity, justice, respect for others, being on time, doing a good job, working well with others, being a good citizen, and exercising democracy in government and other interactions. Americans have thus far kept our republic, and created it to be resilient and strong. However, the United States will remain free only with relentless vigilance and public engagement, which must be transmitted in our culture.

Read the full story

Louisiana Democrats Remove Thomas Jefferson And Andrew Jackson From Name Of Fundraiser

  The Louisiana Democratic Party has dropped the names Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson from its annual fundraising dinner. The Jefferson-Jackson dinner will now be called the True Blue Gala, reports the Associated Press. This year’s event is set to be held Aug. 26 in New Orleans. The name change is in step with similar moves by Democratic party chapters in several other states that wanted to distance themselves from the two former presidents, both of whom owned slaves. Those states include Arkansas, Georgia, Missouri and Connecticut. State Sen. Karen Carter Peterson, chairwoman of the Louisiana Democratic Party, said last fall that the dinner would be rebranded “to reflect the progress of the party and the changing times.” Party leaders decided on the new name after conducting surveys and having conversations with Democrats across the state. While they are considered founders of the Democratic Party, Jefferson and Jackson are increasingly criticized because they owned slaves. Jackson is also controversial because he signed the Indian Removal Act which led to the Trail of Tears, the forced removal of Natives Americans from their ancestral homes, primarily in Tennessee and Georgia. Jarrett Stepman, an editor for The Daily Signal, called the scrubbing of their names…

Read the full story

Constitution Series: Judicial Review

    This is the eighth of twenty-five weekly articles in The Tennessee Star’s Constitution Series. Students in grades 8 through 12 can sign up here to participate in The Tennessee Star’s Constitution Bee, which will be held on September 23. The Separation of Powers and Federalism are two foundational concepts of the Constitution,  based on the idea that checks and balances between competing interests will prevent any one individual or group from obtaining and exercising abusive powers within our republic. In the national government, the checks and balances of the Separation of Powers were designed within the Constitution, which gave specific powers to the three equal branches of government— executive, legislative, and judicial–but also placed limits on the powers of each branch. The legislative branch, which passes laws, approves Presidential nominations for Cabinet positions and the Supreme Court and other federal courts, appropriates money, and can impeach the president and federal judges. The executive branch can veto legislation, nominate judges, and administers the day-to-day operations of the government. The judicial branch has asserted, without much resistance, the power to declare laws passed by Congress and Presidential actions unconstitutional–a principle commonly known as “judicial review.” Unlike the powers granted the…

Read the full story

The ‘Aha Moment’ at the Tennessee General Assembly This Year

The idea of a citizen-legislator has gone by the wayside and been replaced by the career politician. Unless there is more transparency and inclusion, there may well be a demand for change in leadership. For certain in 2019 there will be great change, and quite possibly the “drain the swamp” echo from 2016 will filter down to state politics in 2018. It may be time for the state to consider term limits.

Read the full story

Constitution Series: The Electoral College and the Selection of the President

Tennessee Star

    This is the third of twenty-five weekly articles in The Tennessee Star’s Constitution Series. Students in grades 8 through 12 can sign up here to participate in The Tennessee Star’s Constitution Bee, which will be held on September 23. The method of selection of a President to head the executive branch for a term of four years is the most notable illustration of the foundational concept of Federalism seen in the body of the text of the Constitution of the United States that emerged from the Constitutional Convention. Federalism, as we explained earlier in this series, “defines the relationship between the national government and each of the state governments that comprise our republic. Both entities–the national government and each state government–remain sovereign, while the powers of governance and responsibilities to the citizenry are balanced between the two.” And it was the Tenth Amendment, ratified in 1791 and part of the original constitutional “compact” or “covenant” between the states and the national government upon which our republic was organized: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. “The executive Power…

Read the full story