Fans in Nashville Say Goodbye To Country Music Legend Glen Campbell

  NASHVILLE, Tennessee — Fans stopped by a memorial Wednesday at the Country Music Hall of Fame to say goodbye to country artist Glen Campbell, who died Tuesday at age 81. A table with flowers and a condolence book for people to sign was set up in the rotunda near Campbell’s Hall of Fame plaque. “We used to listen to him in the 70s,” said Ellis Sharadin, who was there with his wife, Rosemarie. The couple is on vacation from Yorktown, Virginia. Sharadin named the 1975 smash hit “Rhinestone Cowboy” as one of his favorite Campbell songs. Paige Lashlee of Tullahoma, Tennessee, said she grew up listening to Campbell’s music and watching his variety show. Campbell was a gifted guitarist, which many took for granted because he was known mostly known for his voice, she said. Her husband, Frank, said Campbell “had a style, and of course girls loved him.” Joni Bertram, visiting Nashville from Vermont, also said she grew up listening to Campbell. “Mostly because we had to,” chimed in her younger brother, Mark Green, who lives in Massachusetts. Their mom was a huge country music fan and exposed her children to her favorite tunes. Even though they had little…

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State Senator Mark Green Not Running In 2018, Announces New Organization to Recruit People of Faith For Elected Office

  In a remarkable year for State Senator Mark Green (R-Clarksville), who was the first to announce a run for governor and then selected as President Trump’s choice for Army secretary, later withdrawing his name from consideration as his nomination process became “a distraction,” followed by a grassroots effort to recruit him back into the gubernatorial race, and presented the Outstanding Achievement in State Tax Reform award from the Tax Foundation, Green has taken on a decidedly different cause that some might view as “a calling.” Green announced Wednesday on WWTN 99.7 Nashville Morning News that he, along with 12-year Georgia State Senator Judson Hill who resigned in 2017 to run for Congress, are forming a 501(c)4 not-for-profit and a corresponding super PAC, with the purpose of recruiting “people of faith to run for elected office.” Putting his own political advancement on hold until 2020, Green said he would continue to serve in his current State Senate seat while he runs the new nationwide effort.  Some of the reasons Green cited for that are that there are already “great people” in some of the races and that, with the turnover in 2018, there is a need for some continuity in…

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Neighbors File Lawsuit To Stop Homeless Village On Church Property in South Nashville

Neighbors have filed a lawsuit to stop plans for a village for the homeless on the property of Glencliff United Methodist Church in South Nashville, reports NewsChannel 5. The “micro home village” would include 22 tiny homes about 220 square feet each. The Metro Board of Zoning Appeals approved a building permit in May, saying places of worship are protected by federal and state laws from zoning rules. But neighbors insist that because the project will be run by Open Table Nashville, a separate nonprofit group, zoning rules should apply. “Neighbors didn’t really have any notice this was happening,” Jessica Van Dyke, who lives near the church, told NewsChannel 5. “It was forced on us and we were told after the fact.” The lawsuit was filed against the Metro Board of Zoning Appeals, Glencliff United Methodist Church, the Tennessee Conference of the United Methodist Church and Bishop Bill McAlilly. Attorney Andrew Preston issued a statement on behalf of the church, conference and bishop stating that the “lack of housing is a very serious issue in Nashville and the church has decided to answer the biblical call to love our neighbor by providing safe and supportive shelter to some of our city’s most…

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Commentary: Are Conservatives and the GOP Better Off Today Than We Were Before Trump?

by Jeffrey A. Rendall   At the end of his lone presidential debate opposite President Jimmy Carter in 1980, Ronald Reagan looked straight into the television camera and famously asked the American People, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” Republicans and conservatives need to similarly ask today, “Are we better off than we were two years ago?” For it was two years ago on August 6, 2015 that Donald Trump took the stage in Cleveland, Ohio with nine other Republican presidential candidates to debate publicly for the first time as a member of the GOP presidential field. That particular forum is perhaps best remembered for Trump’s initial testy exchange with moderator Megyn Kelly (of Fox News back then), but from the very start of the program it was clear the “outsider” New York businessman’s presence would change the dynamic in the party. The day after the debate I wrote at ConservativeHQ.com, “Trump delivered perhaps the most unconventional ‘performance’ in a debate that we’ve ever witnessed – and his presence literally forced all the other candidates to get serious about staking out and defending their positions. “In one way or another, Trump dominated the debate from the…

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How the GOP Could Yank Party Endorsement from NeverTrump Senator Jeff Flake in Arizona

The Republican Party could dispense harsh discipline against GOP senators who deride or undermine President Donald Trump, using an little-known rule to pull official endorsements. One of those senators who could lose the nod of his own party could be Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, up for re-election in 2018. Rule 11 of the Republican National Committee…

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Report Calls On Attorney General Sessions To End EPA’s $1.5 Billion Slush Fund

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has established a practice in recent years that allows the agency to “create its own de facto power of the purse,” according to a report from the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) released Tuesday. The EPA and Department of Justice (DOJ) force private companies and individuals to fund policies and initiatives that…

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New York Times Admits Its Front Page Climate Change Article Was Wrong

Tennessee Star

The New York Times issued a correction to its Tuesday front page article, now admitting that the government climate report it “obtained” had actually been publicly available online for months. “An article on Tuesday about a sweeping federal climate change report referred incorrectly to the availability of the report,” TheNYT wrote in its correction issued Wednesday…

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Conexion Americas Led Coalition, With Randy Boyd’s Non-Profit as a ‘State Partner,’ Says Students Here Illegally Deserve ‘Educational Equity’

  Conexion Americas, the convener and leading member of the Tennessee Educational Equity Coalition (TEEC), has issued a letter to Sens. Alexander and Corker asking them to continue Obama’s administrative bypass of Congress that unilaterally created the questionable DACA program. Gubernatorial candidate Randy Boyd’s education non-profit Complete Tennessee, on which Conexion Americas’ founder and executive director Renata Soto serves as a board member, is listed as a State Partner on the TEEC website. TEEC was established in March 2016. Complete Tennessee was established in September 2016, about the same time that Randy Boyd and his wife Jenny Boyd donated $250,000 to Conexion Americas. TEEC says that students who arrived in Tennessee in violation of U.S. immigration law deserve “educational equity:” As members of the Tennessee Educational Equity Coalition, we write you to express our support for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. The Tennessee Educational Equity Coalition is a diverse group of civil rights and education advocacy organizations whose goal is to build a shared advocacy agenda to address achievement and opportunity gaps for students across the state. We write you to respectfully request that you support the DACA program and that you urge President Trump to keep the DACA program intact until…

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Faith: Verse of the Day for Thursday, August 10

Tennessee Star - Verse of the Day

  VERSE OF THE DAY Be blessed and be a blessing August 10, Thursday Deuteronomy 20:1 “When you go out to battle against your enemies and see horses and chariots and people more numerous than you, do not be afraid of them; for the LORD your God, who brought you up from the land of Egypt, is with you” Psalm 44:5 Through You we will push back our adversaries; Through Your name we will trample down those who rise up against us. Luke 10:19 “Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will injure you.    

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