Day: May 15, 2017

Bowling Green Schools Among Those Cheering Efforts To Make School Lunches Great Again

Wendy Wilson

  Gone are the rigid regulations for school lunches championed by former first lady Michelle Obama. U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue has other ideas in his quest to “Make School Meals Great Again,” as touted in a May 1 news release. “This announcement is the result of years of feedback from students, schools, and food service experts about the challenges they are facing in meeting the final regulations for school meals,” Perdue said in the news release. “If kids aren’t eating the food, and it’s ending up in the trash, they aren’t getting any nutrition – thus undermining the intent of the program.” There will still be a focus on nutrition, including serving fruits and veggies, but pressure will ease up on using only whole grains and a push to lower sodium levels is on hold. There also will be more options for milk. Schools in Bowling Green, Kentucky, are celebrating the changes. Gina Howard, who oversees Warren County Public Schools’ food service, told the Bowling Green Daily News that her district has met the stringent requirements but has had problems making the food appealing to children. Kim Simpson, food service director for the Bowling Green Independent School District, sees improvements ahead…

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Nashville DA Calls Police ‘Insensitive’ For Using Word ‘Suspect’ To Describe Armed Black Man Shot By Officer

Wendy Wilson

  The Nashville district attorney’s office says police were “insensitive” when in their reports they referred to an armed black man shot by an officer in self-defense as a suspect. The criticism is found in a report issued last week by District Attorney Glenn Funk on the Feb. 10 shooting of Jocques Scott Clemmons by Josh Lippert, a white officer with the Metro Nashville Police Department. “Identifying the officer as the victim and Mr. Clemmons as the suspect sends a message that could be perceived as biased, and seems insensitive because no charges could be brought against Mr. Clemmons,” the report says. “To label the parties in this manner, particularly in the beginning stages of the investigation, could create an appearance to the public that the investigation was biased.” While the district attorney’s office determined Lippert acted in self-defense and will not pursue criminal charges against him, its report was critical of the police department’s handling of the case and recommended steps to eliminate any appearance of bias in the future and ensure minorities are treated fairly. In future cases, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation will alone conduct a thorough criminal investigation when an MNPD officer’s use of force results…

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Nashville’s Citizen Police Academy Offers Inside Look At Law Enforcement

Wendy Wilson
Tennessee Star

  The Metro Nashville Police Department is accepting applications for its next Citizen Police Academy, which offers Nashville area residents an inside look at local law enforcement. The summer session, to be held at the Hermitage precinct, begins Monday, June 12. The free course runs 12 weeks. The program will feature various guest speakers, including members of the police department’s specialized units. Topics will include gangs, narcotics enforcement, domestic violence, traffic/DUI enforcement, internet crimes, emergency preparedness, crime prevention and the judicial process. There will also be tours of the Emergency Communications Center and demonstrations by the aviation, canine and mounted units. “The Citizen Police Academy provides a unique view of this department and Nashville’s law enforcement professionals,” said Chief Steve Anderson in a news release.  “We invite folks from all neighborhoods to consider applying.  Class members will come away each week with knowledge about police work that they didn’t have before.”  It will be the 37th session of the Citizen Police Academy since the popular program began in 1995. Classes will be held on Monday nights from 6 p.m.-9 p.m. through August 28th in the community room of the Hermitage precinct, located at 3701 James Kay Lane.  Class size is…

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Retired Georgia Pastor Earns Degree At 88

Wendy Wilson

  A retired pastor in Georgia is enjoying the media spotlight for earning a college degree at age 88. Horace Sheffield enrolled at Shorter University, a Southern Baptist school in Rome,  in 1961 but didn’t complete his degree because he needed to focus on taking care of his family. His granddaughter Jill Brazier told Fox 5 Atlanta that Sheffield is a determined man and that she wasn’t surprised that he wanted to return to school at Shorter to follow through with what he had started so long ago. “That’s one thing in his life that he had never finished,” she said. Sheffield was able to enroll tuition free and do his work online to earn a bachelor’s degree in Christian Studies and a spot alongside fellow graduates of the class of 2017. Known as “Pop” to those who love him, Sheffield is an honorary senior pastor at Calvary Baptist Church in Barnesville, his hometown. He used to work as director of missions for the Georgia Baptist Convention. Sheffield, who is only days away from turning 89, has three children, five grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren. His wife Bernice died several years ago. A Shorter University news release described the enthusiasm that greeted Sheffield when he…

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Illegal Immigrant Lawfare Could Turn Nashville Into a Sanctuary City

Chris Alto
Tennessee Star

  On April 7, 2017, Saudi national Abdullah Mansour Abriq, a former student at Tennessee State University, sued Metro Nashville, Davidson County and their sheriff Daron Hall alleging that being held in the Davidson County jail on a detainer request from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), violates his constitutional rights and that the sheriff is prohibited from cooperating with ICE. The lawsuit, filed in federal court with Abriq as the lead plaintiff, is a class action on behalf of “hundred and likely thousands of immigrants” being held because of ICE detainer requests, and will be heard by Obama nominated Chief Judge Waverly Crenshaw whose lifetime appointment was supported by Tennessee Senators Alexander and Corker. Abriq is identified in the complaint as a “foreign national who immigrated to the United States under an F-1 student visa.” The F-1 visa is a type of non-immigrant visa that allows a person to be educated in the U.S. if they meet certain conditions. Typically, absent an extension, the student must leave the country once the term or conditions of the visa expire. Visa overstayers are considered unlawfully present in the U.S. and can be deported. In 2016, a bill endorsed by the Haslam administration…

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Elizabeth Warren Injects Left Wing Politics Into College Commencement Speech

Tennessee Star Staff
Elizabeth Warren

Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren delivered the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s commencement speech Friday and used it as an opportunity to encourage the graduates to take up activism. “If you learn nothing else from this speech, please know this: ‘fireball’ is a nickname that Donald Trump uses on Twitter, not a beverage to be consumed by distinguished…

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Judson Phillips Commentary: It Is Time To Break Up Tennessee’s Large Cities

Judson Phillips

It is time to break up Tennessee’s large cities. Anyone with three functioning brain cells realizes the Tennessee Republican Party is not a conservative party and the Tennessee State legislature is a body that is of the lobbyists, by the lobbyists and for the lobbyists. The Tennessee legislature will occasionally throw something out that is red meat for the Republican base, but for the most part they act like moderate Democrats. After all, without the Republicans in the state legislature, who would we have to expand government and raise taxes? Conservatives need to start pressing the legislature to make some real small government reforms. One of the best reforms that could be made is to start breaking up Tennessee’s largest cities. This process has started with State Senator Bo Watson’s “De Annexation” bill, which passed the Senate this year and will be considered by the House next year. Tennessee’s four largest cities have Democrat mayors. Memphis is well on its way to putting Detroit to shame as a murder capital and as the city most likely to end up in bankruptcy. Nashville, while a safer city, has had a series of mayors who put Music City on the way to…

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FBI Says Tad Cummins Had Sexual Relationship With 15 Year Old Girl He Took From Columbia, Tennessee

Tennessee Star Staff
Tennessee Star

Tad Cummins, the man accused of kidnapping 15-year-old Elizabeth Thomas, had sex with the girl “most nights” while the two were missing, according to an FBI agent’s testimony. FBI Agent Utley Noble also said 50-year-old Cummins, who was formerly Elizabeth’s high school teacher, said the two began having a sexual relationship March 13, the day they…

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SC Gov. McMaster Vetoes Gas Tax, In Stark Contrast to TN Gov. Haslam, Who Championed It

Laura Baigert
Tennessee Star

  South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster posted a video “Gas Tax Veto” to his Facebook page, saying “Today I vetoed the General Assembly’s gas tax bill, and I would like to tell you why.”  He continued, “Unfortunately, raising taxes was the only solution seriously considered by the legislature.” Quite a contrast to recent events in Tennessee, where Governor Haslam was the one who would only accept a gas tax increase to fund roads through his IMPROVE Act.  The Governor persisted in his “my way or the highway” solution to road funding, despite other alternatives being offered by some members of the House of Representatives, and nearly half of his own party at 35 of 37 Republican Representatives, voting against it. Tennessee suffers from much the same problem as South Carolina, as stated by Governor McMaster, “Right now over one-fourth of your gas tax dollars are not used for road repairs.  They’re siphoned off for government agency overhead and programs that have nothing to do with roads.” As previously reported by The Tennessee Star, some of the current road “user fees” are diverted from the Highway Fund, and the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) “overhead” has grown 63 percent under Governor…

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Constitution Series: The Second Amendment – Its Meaning, Purpose, and Scope

John Harris

    This is the seventh 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 Second Amendment declares that individual citizens have a right to keep and bear arms. That right is not created by the Second Amendment but is recognized to naturally exist independent of the Constitution. The purpose of the Second Amendment is to make clear that the federal government lacks any authority to restrict or infringe that individual right. The right is not just the right of the individual to own arms that are suitable for hunting, self defense, recreational shooting or collecting – although each of those are within its scope. The Second Amendment, much like the First Amendment, also exists to protect a political right and the political power that was essential to founding of this nation and as indicated in the Declaration of Independence. That right is the supreme authority and the power of the citizens of any nation or government to change, abolish, redo or re-establish their government. At the time that the Second Amendment was written,…

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