East Tennessee hardware store puts up 'No Gays Allowed' sign

New sign at Amyx Hardware & Roofing Supplies (Photo: WBIR)

UPDATE: WEDNESDAY, JULY 1, 2015: A new sign has been posted at Amyx Hardware & Roofing Supplies in Grainger County.

The sign reads, "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone who would violate our rights of freedom of speech & freedom of religion."

The sign bears the signature of the store's owner Jeff Amyx.

We'll have more on this story later today on 10News and WBIR.com.

ORIGINAL STORY: (WBIR) An East Tennessee store owner is using what some call a controversial sign to express his beliefs following the Supreme Court's ruling on same-sex marriage.

Several WBIR 10News viewers brought this story to our attention on Facebook.

Jeff Amyx, who owns Amyx Hardware & Roofing Supplies in Grainger County, added the 'No Gays Allowed' sign because gay and lesbian couples are against his religion.

Amyx, who is also a baptist minister, said he realized Monday morning that homosexual people are not afraid to stand for what they believe in. He said it showed him that Christian people should be brave enough to stand for what they believe in.

"They gladly stand for what they believe in, why can't I? They believe their way is right, I believe it's wrong. But yet I'm going to take more persecution than them because I'm standing for what I believe in," Amyx said.

He said he has no plans to take the sign down.

Via: WBIR.com

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[COMMENTARY] Obamacare wins one, America loses

The Supreme Court’s ruling Thursday in King v. Burwell has temporarily saved the Affordable Care Act, but millions of Americans are still hurting under Obamacare. The high court’s six-justice majority agreed that the IRS can change the wording of the law to the administration’s liking. No one, however, can change that Obamacare is an expensive failure — unpopular, unworkable and unaffordable.

Obamacare enrollees are facing double-digit premium increases, the opposite of what they were promised. The president’s health-care law was supposed to “bend the cost curve” — and it has, in the wrong direction. Obamacare piled mandates on the insurance industry while drastically increasing uncertainty in the market. Early on, insurers were working with incomplete data when setting rates. They didn’t know how sick or expensive their millions of new enrollees would be. Now they have a better idea and are proposing enormous rate hikes — 30 percent or more in states such as in Maryland, Tennessee and New Mexico.

Dr. John Barrasso, a Republican, represents Wyoming in the U.S. Senate. He is an orthopedic surgeon and former chief of staff at the Wyoming Medical Center.

The president has two options: He can ignore these staggering numbers and let the Obamacare juggernaut roll forward. Or he can sit down with Republicans and find ways to offer relief to hardworking Americans.

President Obama should welcome a full airing of ideas. The health care law still lacks the support of most Americans. A June 8 poll by the Washington Post and ABC News put support for Obamacare at 39 percent and opposition at 54 percent. Is it any wonder? The bill was written behind closed doors, with no real discussion of opposing views, and passed on a party-line vote. The plan was far too complicated, with too many mandates and penalties. It was never designed to increase choice and lower prices. The subsidies to buy insurance served only to hide the true costs.

One of the main arguments the law’s defenders made in King v. Burwell was that if the subsidies at issue were struck down, another 6 million Americans would find health care too expensive. In other words, they cannot afford insurance without government help. That is a clear sign that the law has failed to rein in costs and should be replaced.

It’s time for the president to focus on addressing the real problems with this law. Republicans have good ideas about how to lower costs, improve access and help Americans lead healthier lives.

Via: Palm Beach Post

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Civil Rights Activist Who Marched With Martin Luther King Posts Blunt Billboard About ‘Black Lives Matter’

“Black lives matter. So let’s quit killing each other.”

One man feels so strongly about that message that he put it in big bold letters on a Memphis, Tennessee, billboard, just steps from where he goes to work everyday.

Image source: WMC-TV

“We’re going to have to wake up. We’re going to have to say to ourselves that black lives matter, and we’re going to have to refrain from killing each other out of our own frustration,” civil rights activist Fred Davis told WMC-TV.

The sign was put up at Airways Boulevard and Park Avenue southeast of downtown. Davis said he wanted to get the message across to people because he was a part of the history.

“I think that gives me a license as an experienced observer to push and to advocate to the black community – let’s stop it,” Davis added.

Image source: WMC-TV

Davis is an Army veteran who served in France for two years. He was also the first black man to receive a masters of business administration degree from the University of Memphis, the first black chairman of the Memphis city council, and walked alongside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. when the iconic civil rights leader made his last march in Memphis in 1968, the year of his assassination.

Today, Davis has his own insurance agency at the same intersection where he put up the billboard.

Via: Brave

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Tennessee family accused of spending $187M raised for cancer charities on themselves

Federal regulatory officials Tuesday accused a Tennessee family of spending more than $187 million collected for cancer charities on cars, gym memberships, cruise vacations, and college tuition. 

The Federal Trade Commission, in a federal lawsuit joined by all 50 states and the District of Columbia, said that James T. Reynolds Sr., his ex-wife and son raised the money through their various charities: The Cancer Fund of America in Knoxville, Tennessee, and its affiliated Cancer Support Services; The Breast Cancer Society in Mesa, Arizona; and the Children's Cancer Fund of America in Powell, Tennessee.

The charities hired telemarketers to collect $20 donations from people across the country, telling consumers that they provided financial aid and other support to cancer patients, including pain medication, transportation to chemotherapy visits and hospice care.

But little money made it to cancer patients, as the groups "operated as personal fiefdoms characterized by rampant nepotism, flagrant conflicts of interest, and excessive insider compensation" with none of the controls used by bona fide charities, the FTC said Tuesday.

Jessica Rich, director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, declined to say whether authorities were pursuing a separate criminal investigation against the Reynolds family, saying only that the agency did not have the authority to do so. 

Via: Fox News

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UAW Crushed. What Comes Next? UAW Crushed In Vote Attempting To Unionize At VW Plant In Tennessee, Despite Obama Intercession

No wonder they wanted card check:  I remember, toward the end of the last Bush administration,  whippersnappers all the confident young Dem policy warriors repeating labor’s talking points about the need to allow the secret ballot in union recognition elections to be replaced by “card check,” a system in which workers sign cards in the presence of union organizers. Without card check, management would “coerce” workers by pointing out the downside of unionization in mandatory propaganda meetings.

Wasn’t it possible that workers who turned down unions simply looked at what Wagner Act unionism had done, say, to Detroit, and decided for themselves that this wasn’t what they wanted to happen to their company? Nah.

Now we know different: At Vokswagen’s Chattanooga factory, the UAW was actually welcomed by the employer. No union-busting propganada sessions. VW, which already has a powerful union back home in Europe, wanted to set up German-style “works councils,” where rank and file employees could have a say in production decisions. But, according to many U.S. labor lawyers, it needed a union partner — otherwise, under the Wagner Act the works councils would be considered an illegal “company union.” The UAW seemed ready to be that partner. UAW organizers were allowed in the plant to make their case. Management didn’t argue back.**

And the workers still said no. In the secret ballot election that concluded Friday, VW’s Chattanooga employees voted against unionizing by a margin of  712 to 626. The UAW couldn’t even win an election it had been handed on a silver platter by management.

The most interesting part comes next: If Volkswagen now goes ahead and starts its works councils anyway, without the UAW, will organized labor sue to have them declared illegal? That would give the Roberts Court a precious opportunity to interpret the Wagner Act in a way that actually allows non-legalistic, non-adversarial forms of worker participation in management (despite the “company union” prohibition). In effect, the courts could help VW create what those on the left have been (correctly) demanding of the right: a reasonable alternative to traditional unionism, giving workers a “voice” without subjecting every management decision to a war of bargainers and lawyers and (ultimately) the formalized pitched battle of a strike.

Now that would be a threat to Big Labor. Which is why they might not sue.

Via: Daily Caller

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[VIDEO] Tennessee Man Spends Three Weeks Trying To Sign Up For Obamacare, Still Unsuccessful…

Side note: Who has three weeks to burn trying to sign up for overpriced crappy insurance?

WATE-TN: Tennessee Man Unsuccessfully Tries To Sign Up For ObamaCare For 3 Weeks (October 22, 2013)

Via: Weasel Zippers

Dem Rep Calls Tea Party Republicans ‘Domestic Enemies’

Tennessee Democrat Rep. Steve Cohen called tea party congressional Republicans “domestic enemies” against which he must defend the country, describing them as rabid, sophomoric and in ambitious pursuit of their policies.

“I obviously do not have an opportunity to go within the conference, the Republican — we call it a caucus, they call it a conference,” Cohen said on Saturday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Up with Steve Kornacki.” “But I know some of the members there — and a lot of those members — they’re rabid, they’re sophomoric, literally, they’re second term in Congress, never worked in politics before, and they think they are somehow like — it’s all talked in military terms. They think they’re some kind of guerrillas there to strike a blow for freedom.”

Via: Fox News

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Tennessee law prohibiting welfare cards for liquor and lap dances flounders

A new Tennessee law that forbids people from using electronic benefit transfer cards at adult establishments including strip clubs and liquor stores hasn’t gone into effect — and one Memphis liquor store owner said no one has formally notified him of the change.

Harry Cardosi, owner of Uncle Harry’s liquor store, said his liquor license and other information about his business is on file with state officials in Nashville. So they ought to be able to find him.

The new law certainly affects him — Tennessee Watchdog’s examination of state records last year shows that some of Cardosi’s customers used EBT cards at his establishment.

He said state officials sometimes don’t generally notify him of new laws that affect his business.

If caught violating the law, Cardosi would have to pay fines of up to $1,000, according to the law.

Via: Fox News

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Tennessee TV Station Can’t Find Anyone Who Has Successfully Signed Up for Obamacare

BY: Washington Free Beacon Staff

October 9, 2013 9:45 am

WATE reports Tennessee’s Project Access, the group designated to help people enroll, still has not been able to get anyone through the entire sign-up process.

Via: WFB

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Experts Fear Backdoor Unionization in Tennessee

A business’ attempt to collaborate with workers may provide an auto union a long-sought foothold in right-to-work Tennessee, which experts suggested could end up hurting employees.

United Auto Worker Region 8 director Gary Casteel claimed that a majority of the 2,500 workers at Volkswagen’s Chattanooga manufacturing facility had signed card check forms, which would grant the union exclusive representationrights at the facility.

This wasn’t a typical example of a union organizing: It was the company, not the union, that raised the issue of giving workers a voice in the plant’s operations.

VW, a German company, approached the Tennessee manufacturing plant earlier this month, hinting that it would not receive additional investments if it did not establish an European-model works council to represent employee interests.

“When I toured the Chattanooga plant and spoke with workers, I found little evidence of any job dissatisfaction … all anyone could talk about was the number of applicants and how lucky they felt to have such a good job,” one auto analyst told theWashington Free Beacon on condition of anonymity.

Works councils provide employees with direct representation to management in worker safety and plant operations. They differ from American unions in one respect, according to Lipscomb University economics professor Richard Grant.

Via: WFB

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GOP bill blocks food stamp users from buying junk food

Rep. Phil Roe (R-Tenn.) on Tuesday proposed legislation that would require people using federal food stamps to buy only healthy food.

The Healthy Food Choices Act, H.R. 3073, reflects a long-standing criticism that the government's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) allows people to buy billions of dollars worth of junk food. 

A 2012 study found that food stamps enable about $2 billion worth of junk food purchases each year, and that more than half of all SNAP benefits are used to buy sugary drinks.

Efforts to curb these purchases have been opposed by anti-hunger groups. But Roe said some states are already exploring ways to curb junk food purchases through the SNAP program, and argued that the federal government needs to take steps as well.

"Already, states like Wisconsin and South Carolina have shown interest in improving the healthfulness of choices in their SNAP programs," he said. "By giving SNAP recipients more nutritious choices, we can take a meaningful step towards ending hunger in America."

Under Roe's bill, food purchased under SNAP would have to meet the same guidelines that food purchased under the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program already have to meet. The WIC guidelines are strict, and are made up of several different standards for products like breakfast cereal, milk, vegetables, peanut butter and other foods.

Breakfast cereal, for example, must contain certain levels of iron, cannot contain more than 21.2 grams of sugar per 100 grams of cereal, and must have whole grain as a primary ingredient in order to be bought under the WIC program.

Via; The Hill

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