Tennessee’s American Muslim Advisory Council Board Member Shouts Down Police During Saturday Protest at UT Knoxville

Drost Kokoye, a founding and current board member of the American Muslim Advisory Council (AMAC), Tennessee’s most prominent Muslim organization, was caught on video using a bullhorn held to the faces of police and shouting them down for wearing riot gear while they were protecting protesters like Kokoye at UT Knoxville on Saturday. You can see Kokoye aggressively pushing her bullhorn towards the face of one police officer at the 2:22 mark of this video from WATE TV. The demonstration was organized by UT Knoxville’s Progressive Student Alliance to protest the university’s decision to allow Matthew Heimbach, leader of the Traditionalist Worker Party, to speak at UTK, the first stop on his campus speech tour. Heimbach’s group ascribes to white nationalist ideology. During Saturday’s UTK demonstration that devolved into a hate protest against the police, AMAC board member Drost Kokoye joined marchers delivering that message – “cops get the f*** off our campus (look for the pink hijab in the video below): “COPS GET THE F*** OFF OUR CAMPUS” Student-led protests at the University of Tennesee today against ‘police and nazis’ as Matthew Heimbach set to speak. pic.twitter.com/f7mBMC3uxF — Matt Finn (@MattFinnFNC) February 17, 2018 Kokoye posted this tweet about…

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Tennessee Star Editor-in-Chief to Guest Host the Dan Mandis Show on WTN Today and Interview Carol Swain About Moral Leadership

Tennessee Star Editor-in-Chief Michael Patrick Leahy will guest host The Dan Mandis Show from noon to 3 p.m. central time on Supertalk 99.7 WTN today, President’s Day, Monday, February 19. The first hour will address the turbulent recent events in Tennessee politics, including Sen. Bob Corker’s (R-TN) potential re-entry into the U.S. Senate race and the controversy surrounding Nashville Mayor Megan Barry. At 12:30 former Vanderbilt professor Carol Swain will offer her commentary on Megan Barry’s lack of moral leadership and its impact on Nashville, the hypocrisy of the #metoo movement with regards to Barry’s extramarital affair with her Metro Nashville Police bodyguard, and the Megan Barry Must Resign rally Tuesday. In the 1 p.m. hour, conservative icon Richard Viguerie, president of ConservativeHQ.com, will discuss the status of 2018 midterm elections. In the second half of that hour, author and Reagan biographer Craig Shirley will offer his reflections on Ronald Reagan on President’s Day, discuss his most recent books, Reagan Rising: The Decisive Years, 1976-1980 and Citizen Newt:The Making of a Reagan Conservative, and will let us in on his future book projects. The final hour of the program will focus on civic education and instruction of elementary and secondary school…

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Constitution Series: The Nineteenth Amendment

Susan B Anthony

    This is the twenty-second 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 Saturday, April 28.   The Nineteenth Amendment was finally ratified and victoriously added to the United States Constitution on August 26, 1920 after nearly one hundred years of painstaking trials, tumult, and disappointment.  Twenty-six million women were enfranchised! It states: The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.  Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. To understand the long road to political equality for the American woman, we must understand the history and events that transpired during those years. HISTORY The U. S. Constitution of 1787 was a gender-neutral document.  The original Constitution referred to “persons,” not male persons, and used the pronoun “he” only in the generic sense.  Not until the addition of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868 did the Constitution include the word “male.”   In fact, nothing in the original document prevented women from voting.  Our founders left it to the discretion…

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Jeff Hartline Commentary: Evaluating Risk In The Era Of School Shootings: Do Solving Other Problems Teach Us Anything?

By Jeff Hartline   When I was a little boy, I regularly rode in the car with my dad standing next to him. I can recall numerous times when he would have to quickly apply the brakes that his right hand would shoot across my body to keep me from hitting the metal dashboard. With highway deaths in America approaching 50,000 annually then, it was a “no-brainer” for car manufacturers to start installing lap belts, then shoulder harnesses, then inflatable impact bags, then requiring children to be strapped in car safety seats. We did all this to reduce risk to automobile passengers. We did not, even once, consider reducing the rights of citizens to move about all across the nation or eliminate automobiles from our culture. Just a few decades ago, some evil person laced Tylenol capsules with poison and numerous innocent people died as a result. The Tylenol manufacturer was not required by the public or government to cease operations. What they did was create a safety seal for their product to allow a customer to be able to tell whether a bottle had been opened. All of us parents have experienced the frustrations of getting a prescription bottle…

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‘Resign Now! Megan Barry’ Rally Set for Tomorrow at Metro Nashville Courthouse

A rally calling on embattled Mayor Megan Barry to resign “effective immediately” will take place tomorrow, Tuesday, February 20, at 5 p.m., on the south side steps of the Metro Nashville Davidson Courthouse, organizer Rick Williams told FOX 17. Late last month Mayor Barry admitted to having a two-year-long extramarital affair with her Metro Nashville police officer bodyguard, Sgt. Rob Forrest. The two took nine trips alone together out-of-state at taxpayer expense over the two years. One of these trips was to Athens, Greece, another was to San Francisco, California, and yet another was to Washington, D.C. “Having sex with a subordinate is an ethics violation for sure at a minimum,” Williams explained to the Fox affiliate, adding: They feel like she was busy with a romance for two years and didn’t tend to the things she promised. Corporate leaders, they question whether they should work with someone with a recent tainted past. I personally like Megan Barry. I felt very sorry when her son passed away, I attended both the visitation and funeral. It’s not anything personal at all, I just think she’s lost the trust of the citizens. Long-time pastor and Nashville community activist Enoch Fuzz is expected…

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