Day: April 11, 2017

Metro Nashville Police Forced To School People In The Obvious: Don’t Leave Your Keys In Your Car

Wendy Wilson
Tennessee Star

  It seems like it should go without saying. But Metro Nashville police find themselves having to remind people to remove their keys from their cars when they park. A review of stolen vehicle reports in Nashville from March 26 through April 1 showed that 39 of 49, or 80 percent, of vehicles taken were easy targets because the keys were left or made available to thieves, according to a MNPD news release. Even more shocking: 17 of the 49 vehicles stolen were left running without the driver present. The problem is nothing new, especially at convenience stores. In 2000, the MNPD launched a program called Park Smart! and began putting up signs at convenience markets to remind people of the obvious. And they still need reminding. The recent news release said that the police department “strongly urges citizens to lock their automobile doors, secure any valuables and REMOVE THE KEYS.”      

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Rep. Mark White Says ‘Right Thing to Do’ to Help Illegal Immigrant Student Go to UT Law School; Committee Rejects His In-State Tuition Bill

Chris Alto

  Rep. Mark White (R-Memphis) applauded the testimony of an illegal immigrant student before the House Education committee moments before his bill to provide in-state tuition to all illegal immigrant students failed to pass the committee on Tuesday. Karla Mesa Cruz from Knoxville told the committee today that she wants to go to UT Knoxville and get a law degree from UT Knoxville Law School. She told the committee that she had come to Knoxville when she was three but when she began to investigate going to college, learned that she would have to pay out-of-state tuition.  She told the committee she just didn’t “understand why.” Rep. Mark White told the committee that this was the third time he was trying to pass a bill that would allow illegal immigrant students to pay in-state tuition, because “it’s the right thing to do.” Repeating many of the same talking points as in years past, White’s bill was defeated on a narrow vote of 7 against and 6 in favor on Tuesday. Democrats Raumesh Akbari, Johnnie Turner, John DeBerry and Craig Fitzhugh voted yes, joined by Republicans Mark White and Harry Brooks. Republicans voting no were Jimmy Matlock, Eddie Smith, Terri Lynn…

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LGBT Groups Mount Opposition to Tennessee’s Mark Green as Army Secretary

Tina LaFleur
Tennessee Star

  LGBT advocates like Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and Army Military Partner Association (AMPA) are organizing to block the confirmation of Tennessee state senator Mark Green as President Trump’s next Army Secretary. In what appears to be a coordinated media campaign, several news outlets are reporting Green’s policy positions and record on so-called LGBT issues are “deeply concerning.” Friday, the New York Times reported: A Tennessee state senator who has criticized federal attempts to bar discrimination against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in workplaces and businesses was nominated on Friday to be President Trump’s next secretary of the Army. After a brief bio, the Times quoted from a blog post by AMPA: On Tuesday, the American Military Partner Association, the largest organization of L.G.B.T. military families, accused Mr. Green of making “a shameful political career out of targeting L.G.B.T. people for discrimination.” Monday, TheHill.com published: LGBT groups are raising pressure on President Trump’s nominee for Army secretary, just three days after the pick became official, and are vowing a fight. Trump “couldn’t have picked a worse nominee to pick a fight with Congress,” David Stacy, government affairs director at the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), said Monday. Tuesday morning, the Washington post…

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In-State Tuition For Illegal Immigrants Fails in House Committee

Wendy Wilson
Tennessee Star

  A Tennessee bill that would have offered in-state college tuition to illegal immigrants died in a House committee Tuesday morning, effectively ending its path forward this legislative session. The Education Administration and Planning Committee shot down the bill in a close and emotional 6-7 vote. The bill was sponsored in the House by Rep. Mark White (R-Memphis) and has been sponsored in the Senate by Sen. Todd Gardenhire (R-Chattanooga). Both are Republicans. “I cannot pass the burden onto the taxpayers of Tennessee,” said Rep. Dawn White (R-Murfreesboro) during a discussion before the vote. She said Tennessee would become a magnet for illegal immigrant families who would want their children to be able to take advantage of in-state tuition. The influx would create a need for more schools at the K-12 level and raise property taxes at time when some schools already have a number of portable classrooms, she said. Similar legislation passed in the Senate in 2015 but failed by just one vote in the House. Rep. Mark White, the House bill sponsor, was overcome with emotion Tuesday and seemed near tears as he asked for support for the bill. He said young people brought to the U.S. through no…

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Rep. Judd Matheny and Conservative Majority Caucus Denounce In-State Tuition for Illegal Immigrant Students

Laura Baigert
Tennessee Star

  NASHVILLE, Tennessee–State Representative Judd Matheny (R-Tullahoma), joined by more than a dozen conservative state house members, held a press conference Monday to voice their strong opposition to the push by Governor Haslam and the Republican leadership to extent in-state tuition privileges to illegal immigrant students. “We are standing up because believe the hard-working families and small businesses that make up our great state need an advocate in Nashville who will put them first. We will stand up for the rights of Tennesseans when legislators fail to hear their constituents,” Matheny said. Tennessee Star cameras were rolling: The Star has covered the developments surrounding the in-state tuition push closely, from state Senators White and Gardenhire’s repeated bill proposals to the Tennessee Farm Bureau’s outspoken support. “Today, our goal is to shine the light of truth on a bill that will give in-state college tuition to illegal immigrants. We believe HB 863/SB 1014 is unconstitutional and it will cost Tennessee taxpayers dearly. It will make us a magnet for illegal immigrants – which will further strain our public education system,” Matheny said. “Our position regarding this bill is simple. Our state cannot afford to subsidize public college tuition for illegal aliens, nor should it.…

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Open Borders La Raza Affiliate Adds Office in Memphis

Chris Alto
Tennessee Star

Nashville based TN Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC), a formal affiliate of the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), recently opened an office in Memphis. They are sharing office space with the Mid-South Peace and Justice Center (MSPJC), a “multi-issue, multi-race organization whose mission is to engage, organize, and mobilize communities to realize social justice through nonviolent action.” TIRRC has been the lead organization lobbying for “tuition equality” (meaning citizens and illegal immigrants get the same state benefit), when the first bill was introduced in 2014.  MSPJC, itself a coalition of member organizations was an early supporter of the campaign for “tuition equality.” Establishing a store-front in Memphis brings TIRRC back to its roots since it’s first executive director, David Lubell started his advocacy career with Latino Memphis as a community organizer, leaving in 2001, to start TIRRC in Nashville with an early infusion of funding from a U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement grant to the Nashville Chamber of Commerce for the Building the New American Community initiative, a pilot program designed to facilitate immigration and integration in non-traditional gateway cities like Nashville. The grant emphasized training new immigrants how to be civically engaged which translated into working for political power…

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Commentary: Gorsuch Swearing-In Finally Makes Supreme Court Whole Again

Tennessee Star Staff

  By Jeffrey A. Rendall Considering the huge amount of effort that was expended by both sides of the Supreme Court confirmation fight since he was officially nominated by President Donald Trump at the end of January, Judge Neil Gorsuch’s final senate vote went off without much exertion on Friday. Ryan Lovelace of the Washington Examiner reported, “The Senate confirmed Judge Neil Gorsuch to the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday. “The Republican majority was joined in the 54-45 vote by a few Democrats in confirming the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals judge to the high court. Gorsuch’s success comes after the Senate killed the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations on Thursday, effectively paving the way for Gorsuch to join the high court.” Democrats technically could have dragged out the process until early evening on Friday, but it wouldn’t have made any difference in the outcome. For once it looked like the minority party simply capitulated. Or maybe they just wanted to commiserate with their leftist interest groups or start their Easter recess early. Whatever the reason, Judge Neil Gorsuch will become Justice Neil Gorsuch today. I doubt Chuck Schumer will be there to iron the robe, however. Again, Lovelace reported,…

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Memphis Middle School Student Attacks Teacher In Latest of Series of Violent Incidents

Wendy Wilson
Tennessee Star

  A 12-year-old Memphis middle school student is accused of assaulting her teacher and school officers, WREG News Channel 3 in Memphis reported last week. The incident at Sherwood Middle School started after the student was asked to leave class because she was listening to music during a test, police said. The teacher was pushed to the ground and later taken to a hospital, but was expected to be okay. The student received a juvenile summons for simple assault. Parent Stanley Brown told WREG he wasn’t surprised by what happened. “No respect for the teacher,” he said. “Respect comes from home, then it goes to the school.” On March 28, WREG reported on a 17-year-old student attacking a teacher at Douglass High School in Memphis. Police say the incident happened after an assistant principal asked via loudspeaker for the student to come to the office. The student refused to go, telling her teacher she didn’t do anything. The teacher said when the student was told again to go the office, the student argued with her and knocked her to the ground. The teacher was taken to the hospital in noncritical condition. The student was issued a juvenile summons for assault. The violent episodes…

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Constitution Series: Federalism

Tennessee Star Staff
Tennessee Star

    This is the second part of the 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 September 23.   Federalism is a foundational concept framed in the Constitution of the United States which defines the relationship between the national government and each of the state governments that comprise our republic (thirteen such state governments in 1789, fifty now in 2017). 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. Federalism, along with The Separation of Powers within the national government (which we will discuss in tomorrow’s article) are the two foundational concepts of the Constitution that protect the freedoms and liberties guaranteed to individual citizens. “In the compound republic of America, the power surrendered by the people is first divided between two distinct governments, and then the portion allotted to each subdivided among distinct and separate departments,” James Madison, probably, or Alexander Hamilton, possibly, wrote of “the federal system of America” in Federalist Paper #51, one of the famous series of essays…

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