Sumner County Property Assessor John Isbell Will Run Against County Executive Anthony Holt

John Isbell, the four times elected and internationally recognized Property Assessor of Sumner County, announced Monday that he is running for County Executive against incumbent Anthony Holt in the 2018 election cycle to “bring transparency to the office and stop the crony capitalism that plagues the administration.” First elected as Sumner County Property Assessor in 2004, Isbell has served in numerous positions in both the state and the 7,000-member global association of assessing officers and is pursuing his Ph.D. in public policy. In his campaign platform, Isbell is focused on integrity, transparency and accountability in leadership. “The citizens of Sumner County deserve an honest government and they know I defeated Anthony Holt’s plan to unconstitutionally railroad a tax increase on the property owners in Sumner County,” states Isbell’s press release, which continues, I believe in transparency and plan to bring to light Holt’s policy initiatives while in office. My reputation for honesty is the reason why I have received more votes than Anthony Holt in the past three elections. The unconstitutional tax increase Isbell refers to relates to a 2014 contention by Holt and Sumner County Schools Director Del Phillips that Isbell needed to raise property values following the housing…

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Congressman Kustoff Refuses to Provide Meaningful Help to Beloved West Tennessee Family Doctor Cut Off Medicare By Washington Bureaucrats

Rep. David Kustoff (R-TN-08) met on Tuesday with Dr. Bryan Merrick, co-owner of McKenzie Medical Center, whose Medicare privileges were abruptly revoked by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services over clerical billing errors totaling $670, McKenzie Mayor Jill Holland, Huntingdon Mayor Dale Kelley, McLemoresville Mayor Phil Williams, Carroll County Mayor Kenny McBride, and Bethel University President Walter Butler, all of whom were attempting to secure his help in stopping this egregious abuse of individual rights by an overreaching federal government health care bureaucracy. Kustoff basically punted in response, offering to undertake nothing more than  a purely symbolic effort to “expedite” the lengthy administrative law judge offering. Meanwhile, Dr. Merrick’s patients and employees, as well as Dr. Merrick and McKenzie Medical Center, will suffer devastating consequences, since Medicare payments, which comprise almost half of his practice, are now completely cut off. McKenzie, Tennessee is located in Tennessee’s Eighth Congressional District, which Kustoff represents. In a press released provided to The Tennessee Star by friends of Dr. Merrick, McKenzie, Mayor Jill Holland, speaking for  all those attending the meeting with Kustoff on Dr. Merrick’s behalf “said that she and the others would not be there if they thought Dr. Merrick had done anything…

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Senate Candidate Andy Ogles Calls on President Trump to Issue Executive Order Addressing Opioid Crisis

Republican conservative U.S. Senate candidate Andy Ogles issued a statement Tuesday calling on President Donald Trump to issue an Executive Order addressing the opioid crises. Ogles is asking Trump to direct the Drug Enformcement Agency (DEA) and other federal agencies to use all available means to intensify the investigation and prosecution of those engaged in the reckless, illegal and dangerous over prescription and distribution of opioids. “Congress has tied the hands of our law enforcement officials as they seek to crack down on the illegal distribution of opioids, but with the law enforcement powers they retain they should aggressively pursue those who are fueling the opioid epidemic,” Ogles said in the statement. “I urge President Trump to issue an Executive Order directing the DEA and other federal law enforcement agencies to immediately intensify their investigations and prosecutions of those who are engaged in the illegal distribution of opioids to the fullest extent allowed by law,” the former head of the Tennessee chapter of Americans for Prosperity noted, adding: While Congress tries to figure out how to clean up the legislative mess they have created, the Trump Administration needs to have an ‘all hands on deck’ approach to reducing the addictive…

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Author Liza Mundy Speaks About Women Code Breakers During World War II

During World War II, women played an important role by cracking codes that led to the sinking of Japanese ships. The women were sworn to secrecy and many kept the secret for decades. But recently they’ve started to get credit. Liza Mundy details their experiences in her new book, Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II. Mundy spoke Sunday at the Nashville Public Library as part of the annual Southern Festival of Books. Mundy estimates there were at least 11,000 women involved and perhaps as many as 15,000 or 16,000, including many women from the South. “It was an enormously important wartime effort,” Mundy said. While many Americans are aware of the way Rosie the Riveter-type women contributed in factories, they don’t know about how educated women made their mark,  Mundy said. The code breakers were recruited from women’s colleges and teachers colleges and schools where they were already employed as teachers. The Navy tended to recruit from elite women’s colleges in the North, such as Vassar and Wellesley, while the Army fanned out handsome soldiers across the South to set up recruiting stations at hotels and post offices. It was believed…

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Why EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt Is President Trump’s Best Cabinet Secretary

EPA Chief Scott Priutt

by CHQ Staff   We’ve told CHQ readers about EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s role in President Trump’s successful efforts to roll back the regulatory state, but his efforts so far pale in comparison to Pruitt’s announcement yesterday that he was ending the EPA’s practice of “sue and settle.” Sue and settle was the practice, carried out under Republican as well as Democratic administrations, of allowing special interest groups to sue the EPA to enforce their view of the law or regulation, and then settling without fighting the case or defending the plain words of the statute or regulation. The result would be a “consent decree” issued by an unelected judge that would make law based on the whims and financial self-interest of radical environmental groups. To implement this new policy, Pruitt issued an Agency-wide directive to end “sue and settle” practices within the Agency, providing an unprecedented level of public participation and transparency in EPA consent decrees and settlement agreements. “The days of regulation through litigation are over,” said EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. “We will no longer go behind closed doors and use consent decrees and settlement agreements to resolve lawsuits filed against the Agency by special interest groups where…

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NYTimes Editor Blasts ‘Oblivious Idiot’ Trump, ‘Horrible’ Pence in Latest Project Veritas Sting

A New York Times senior staff editor called President Trump an “oblivious idiot” and Vice President Mike Pence “horrible” and “worse than Trump” in an undercover video released Tuesday by the watchdog group Project Veritas. The video, part of an investigation into liberal media bias, shows London-based homepage editor Desiree Shoe blasting the president and vice…

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Judson Phillips Commentary: Steve Bannon, the Tea Party, and the War with the Establishment GOP

ANALYSIS/OPINION: At the Value Voters Summit last week, former Trump adviser and Breitbart Chairman Steve Bannon announced the obvious. “Right now, it’s a season of war on the GOP establishment,” he told the conservative base. For conservatives, this war is not Mr. Bannon’s war. It is everyone’s war. Contrary to what the media and the Republican…

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Faith: Verse of the Day for Wednesday, October 18

Tennessee Star - Verse of the Day

  VERSE OF THE DAY Be blessed and be a blessing October 18, Wednesday Proverbs 1:1-7 The proverbs of Solomon son of David, king of Israel: 2 for gaining wisdom and instruction; for understanding words of insight; 3 for receiving instruction in prudent behavior, doing what is right and just and fair; 4 for giving prudence to those who are simple, knowledge and discretion to the young— 5 let the wise listen and add to their learning, and let the discerning get guidance— 6 for understanding proverbs and parables, the sayings and riddles of the wise. 7 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction

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