Month: February 2018

Speaker Beth Harwell Casts Tie-Breaking Vote to Advance ‘Medical Cannabis Act’ Despite Law Enforcement Opposition

Laura Baigert

Speaker Beth Harwell (R-Nashville) cast the tie-breaking vote on Tuesday to move the controversial “Medical Cannabis Act” out of the  Criminal Justice Subcommittee. Harwell, who is one of four candidates seeking the Republican nomination for governor, was called in to the subcommittee already in progress to join two Democrats and one Republican who voted in favor of the bill, and cast the fourth and deciding vote against the three Republicans who voted against the bill. Harwell, who is not a member of the subcommittee, has the authority to participate in any subcommittee or committee vote, either in person or through a designee, to break a tie. In a controversial move last year, Harwell designated Speaker Pro Tem Curtis Johnson to break the tie on the IMPROVE Act in the House Transportation Subcommittee. Voting against the bill were Representatives Michael Curcio (R-Dickson), William Lamberth (R-Cottontown) and Micah Van Huss (R-Jonesborough). Voting in favor of the bill were Representatives Tilman Goins (R-Morristown), Raumesh Akbari (D-Memphis), and Sherry Jones (D-Nashville). Harwell’s vote was made in direct opposition to the unanimous opposition of the Tennessee law enforcement community, which was voiced during the subcommittee hearing by the Executive Director of the Tennessee Sheriff’s Association and the Chief…

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Defiant Mayor Megan Barry Refuses to Resign: ‘The Tennesseean Is Welcome to Their Opinion’

Tennessee Star Staff

Embattled Nashville Mayor Megan Barry responded defiantly late Wednesday to the call from the Editorial Board of The Tennessean earlier in the day for her to resign. That call comes in the aftermath of her admission to an extramarital affair with her former bodyguard, Metro Nashville Police Sgt. Rob Forrest. “I was elected to serve as mayor by the voters of Davidson County, and I will continue to do so. The Tennessean is welcome to their opinion,” she said in a statement released by Sean Braisted, director of communications for the Mayor’s Office. The Tennessean’s call for her resignation, written by the paper’s very liberal opinion page editor, David Plazas, pulled no punches: A leader must put the interests and the needs of the people she serves above her own. We thought Nashville Mayor Megan Barry was doing just that. However, it has become abundantly clear in recent weeks that this is not the case after the revelation of her affair with her subordinate and former head of security, retired Metro Nashville Police Department Sgt. Rob Forrest. This is a confounding and disappointing situation: – How he could rack up more than $170,000 in overtime pay over three years, which…

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The Tennessean Editorial Board: ‘It Is Time for Mayor Megan Barry to Resign’

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In a crushing blow from one of Nashville Mayor Megan Barry’s best allies, The Tennessean’s Editorial Board called for her resignation Wednesday. The detailed commentary was written by Opinion and Engagement Editor David Plazas on behalf of the entire Board, with collaboration by fellow editorial board members Vice President and Editor Michael A. Anastasi and Executive Editor Maria De Varenne. “A leader must put the interests and the needs of the people she serves above her own,” Plazas’ editorial begins, which lays out in painful detail the many reasons Barry’s continued service in office is untenable: We thought Nashville Mayor Megan Barry was doing just that. However, it has become abundantly clear in recent weeks that this is not the case after the revelation of her affair with her subordinate and former head of security, retired Metro Nashville Police Department Sgt. Rob Forrest. This is a confounding and disappointing situation: – How he could rack up more than $170,000 in overtime pay over three years, which included extended domestic and overseas trips with her alone and overtime charges in Nashville for hours after the mayor’s calendar showed official events of the day had ended. – How her Chief Operating Officer Rich Riebeling let the…

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Nashville Mayor Megan Barry Heckled During Public Transit Meeting: ‘You Need to Resign! You’re a Disgrace!’

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During a public meeting about the ambitious $9 billion transit plan at Watkins College in Bordeaux Monday, Nashville Mayor Megan Barry was heckled by a lone protester, who stood up and yelled, “You need to resign!” “You need to leave because we are trying to talk about transit,” Barry retorted. As the man was quickly led out of the sparsely attended meeting, he said, “You need to resign! You’re a disgrace. You’re an embarrassment…. I voted for you – you’re a disgrace.” WKRN cameras were rolling and caught the entire incident on video. Citizens in and around Nashville and across the state have been roiled by a series of tawdry revelations after Barry admitted to a years-long affair with her chief of security, former Sgt. Rob Forrest. Concerns over the possible misuse of public funds to carry on, and then cover up the Mayor’s dalliance has sparked several investigations by different state and city agencies including the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations, the Metro Board of Ethical Conduct, and a Metro Council Special Committee. As The Tennessee Star previously reported: It also highlights a growing concern about a lack of checks and balances and the failure to apply standard internal controls to financial…

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The Archbishop of Canterbury: Islamic Rules Are Incompatible with Britain’s Laws

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by CHQ Staff   Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, and leader of the Anglican Church in England, said yesterday that Islamic rules are incompatible with Britain’s laws, which have developed over 500 years on the principles of a different culture. He added that high levels of immigration from Muslim countries can “have an impact on the accepted pattern for choosing a partner, on assumed ages of maturity and sexual activity, and especially on issues of polygamy.” Archbishop Welby’s comments, reported by Steve Doughty Social Affairs Correspondent for The Daily Mail, follow the release earlier this month of a highly critical Home Office report that said all couples marrying in mosques should also have to go through a legally-binding civil marriage ceremony to shield wives from injustices under sharia. They also reverse the position taken by his predecessor Lord Williams, who, observed Doughty, backed incorporating sharia into the British legal system. Archbishop Welby set out his reasons why sharia should not win official status in a book, Reimagining Britain. Archbishop Welby said in advance of publication that British law has “underlying values and assumptions” that come from a clearly Christian tradition. “Sharia law is not just about punishments,” he added. “It is…

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Off the Record: Boyd’s Team in Shelby County Gives a Lesson in Political Arrogance

Chris Alto

Republican gubernatorial candidate Randy Boyd’s campaign team was fired up to be in West Tennessee last week! After opening a Shelby County HQ last Saturday, they capped the day by dressing down Shelby County’s GOP chairman and terrorizing diners at the GOP dinner that night. All because they weren’t treated the way they believed they deserved to be treated. As reported to The Tennessee Star tip line (and subsequently confirmed in other media reports): Chip Saltsman got so mad last night at Shelby County GOP Chair Lee Mills because Diane Black was on the agenda to introduce Senator Tim Scott he screamed at Lee and called him a p***y in front of everyone in the hotel lobby. In case you can’t figure out what p***y spells, think of those little pink hats that all those angry women wore while marching.  Chip has spent time in D.C. and maybe that’s how they talk to each other “up there” but in Tennessee we express our displeasure with at least a touch of C-I-V-I-L-I-T-Y. Campaign managers of self-described MODERATES like Randy Boyd should also realize that calling someone a cat can be offensive if that someone is really a dog person. As if Chip’s rant wasn’t…

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Kushner Ally Josh Raffel to Exit White House

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White House deputy communications director Josh Raffel is leaving the Trump administration, The Washington Times has confirmed. Mr. Raffel has been a key player behind the scenes and the point man for White House senior advisers Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. He has been quietly telling friends and colleagues including Ms. Trump and Mr. Kushner over the past two months of his plans to leave, which were first reported by Axios. Mr. Kushner has family obligations back in New York and plans to return to the private sector, according to White House sources.

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Intimidation Tactics Used Against Conservative Republican First-Time Candidates Running For Sumner County Commission

Laura Baigert

As the February 15 deadline for candidate qualifying petitions for the May 1 primary drew near, intimidation tactics started being employed against conservative first-time Republican candidates running for County Commission in Sumner County. Three self-declared conservative Republican candidates were targeted, with two coming forward publicly and choosing to stay in the race. The current Sumner County Commission, comprised of two commissioners from each of 12 districts for a total of 24, were elected in 2014. As an outcome of the May 2014 primary, 11 new commissioners were elected to the body, the majority of whom were supported by Strong Schools of Sumner County. At a special-called meeting of the Sumner County Budget Committee, immediately followed by a special-called County Commission meeting the night prior to a national election, citizens were caught off guard when the property tax rate was taken from $2.02 to $2.50. Two months later, organized citizens turned out in the hundreds and brought forward a petition with approximately 4,000 signatures protesting the property tax increase. That heavily attended meeting lasted more than six hours, going until after 1 a.m. the following day, once dozens of citizens finally had their say. At the two previous monthly meetings, the…

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Fact Check: Did Broward Sheriff’s Department Get 23 Calls Beforehand About School Shooter?

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Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said his department received only 23 calls involving shooter Nikolas Cruz or his family before the attack at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Verdict: False Records show that the sheriff’s department received 39 calls requesting service from authorities at Cruz’s family home since 2011, though it is not…

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Commentary: President Trump Might Be the Most Conservative President in Our Lifetime

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By Robert Romano   On Feb. 23, President Donald Trump spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) for the second year in a row as president, after not attending in 2016 during the campaign. At the time, he was still busy building his constituency in the Republican primary and for the general election, where he would ultimately prevail on a very conservative platform of putting America and the American people first in governing. Now, Trump is the leader of the conservative, center-right party in the U.S. and of the executive branch. After one year in office, he has a record he has delivered on: lower taxes, fewer regulations and an opening the doors for economic expansion. ANWR has been opened for drilling. The Keystone XL pipeline is being built. The Obamacare individual mandate has been repealed. Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord. He ended the so-called Clean Power Plan. He withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and is looking to revamp NAFTA or else pull out of that one, too. Trump ran on fair and reciprocal trade, and that’s what he’s delivering. At CPAC, Trump declared, “the era of economic surrender is over.” By enforcing trade agreements…

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Liberal Actress Jennifer Lawrence Backtracks: Democrats’ Chastising of Trump Supporters ‘Was Disgusting to Me’

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Oscar-winning actress and liberal activist Jennifer Lawrence said she was disgusted by the Democrats’ chastising of Trump supporters during the 2016 presidential election. The Kentucky native, a Hillary Clinton supporter and vocal critic of President Trump, told Vanity Fair in an interview published Tuesday that she understands why working-class people voted for Mr. Trump, and that she strongly disagreed with the way Mrs. Clinton and her supporters tried to belittle his base.

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San Diego College Teaches How to Boot Trump from Office

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San Diego State University is offering a one-credit course to college-goers on how they might boot President Donald Trump from office. And with that, the demise of America’s once-great places of higher learning, once-unrivaled training grounds for critical thinking, is nearly complete. The class, noted by Campus Reform, is called “Trump: Impeachment, Removal, or Conviction?”

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United Airlines Severs Ties with NRA, Continues to Contribute to Planned Parenthood: Watchdog

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United Airlines cut ties with the National Rifle Association after the Parkland, Florida, school shooting, but continues to donate to Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider. In a tweet on Saturday, the airline said it notified the NRA “that we will no longer be offering a discounted rate to their annual meeting” and asked to be removed from the gun-rights group’s website.

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Pressure Mounts for Broward Sheriff to Resign Following School Massacre

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With pressure mounting on Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel to resign in the wake of this month’s Valentine’s Day shooting at a school in Florida, a Republican state lawmaker Monday added his voice to the chorus. Rep. Randy Fine [far right in photo above], appearing on “The Ingraham Angle” on Fox News, said he signed on to a letter calling for Israel’s suspension and supports a subpoena requiring him to appear in the state capital of Tallahassee to explain an apparent breakdown in which a school resource officer remained outside Parkland’s Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School while Nikolas Cruz allegedly was gunning down 17 people.

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Conservative Nonprofit PragerU Is Suing Google for Alleged Discrimination

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Prager University, a conservative nonprofit that creates educational videos, is suing Google for allegedly discriminating against the digital media organization for its fairly moderate ideological slant. Specifically, PragerU is accusing YouTube, which is owned by Google parent company Alphabet, of restricting or “demonetizing” videos even though they all appear to be innocuous and compliant with the platform’s rules.

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Williamson County School Board Stonewalls Public, Votes Unanimously to Support Superintendent Looney, Arrested for Assault Last Week

Tennessee Star Staff

FRANKLIN, Tennessee–The Williamson County School Board held a special meeting Monday night in Franklin, and voted unanimously to issue a statement of support for embattled Superintendent of Schools Mike Looney, who was arrested last week on assault charges. The vote was 12 to zero. The highly choreographed meeting lasted barely half an hour, and left many in the estimated crowd of 100 members of the public in attendance frustrated, as they were not permitted to speak or ask questions of the board during the meeting or prior to the vote. Williamson County School Board Chairman Gary Anderson began the meeting by reading, in its entirety, the statement of support, which, after one small amendment, was unanimously approved by the Board. During the discussion period, Board Member Eric Welch said “As a parent of a Williamson County Schools student, if my child ever has a psychologically stressful situation in school, I hope that Mike Looney is present,” a remark that caused audible ripples of laughter and headshaking in the crowd. One remarkable admission was made by the School Board in the statement: There is currently no governing law in the state of Tennessee that addresses the issue of how a Superintendent…

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Bob Corker Will Not Seek Re-Election to U.S. Senate

Tennessee Star Staff

On Tuesday, Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) publicly confirmed that he will not be seeking re-election to a third term in the U.S. Senate. Corker announced back on September 26 that he would not seek a third term, but earlier this month stated that he was reconsidering that decision. Corker’s chief of staff broke the news early Tuesday morning in Politico, then issued a written statement picked up by other media outlets. The icy reception Corker received when he spoke at the Shelby County GOP Lincoln Day Dinner on Saturday night may have played a role in his decision to bow out without risking a humiliating defeat against front runner Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN-07) in the August Republican primary. The Tennessee Star reported on Saturday’s event in Memphis: Corker and his consultants have been trying to generate the perception of momentum for him to get in the race by “encouraging” speculative stories in national publications over the past several days, including in USA Today and ABC News. Those efforts, however, have fallen flat. Sources in the Corker camp had previously indicated to the press that he was going to make and announce a decision on the Senate race one or the…

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Former Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey Endorses Marsha Blackburn in U.S. Senate Race

Tennessee Star Staff

Just a few days after nearly twenty current Republican Tennessee State Senators endorsed Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn in her race for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate a former State Senator has joined her team as well. Former Tennessee Lt. Governor Ron Ramsey expressed his support for Blackburn in a tweet earlier today: “I’m proud to support my good friend @VoteMarsha and join grassroots supporters that make up #TeamMarsha. We fought the state income tax together and I know that she will take that same conservative spirit to put Tennessee first all the way to the U.S. Senate. I #StandWithMarsha.” Ramsey, a Republican from Blountville, served as the 49th Lt. Governor of Tennessee and Speaker of the State Senate from 2007 to 2017. He was the first Republican to serve as Speaker of the Senate after140 years of Democratic Party control. He was succeeded by current Republican Lt. Governor Randy McNally (Oak Ridge). Current U.S. Senator Bob Corker announced his decision not to seek reelection for a third term last September. However, he has recently indicated that he is “reconsidering” his decision.

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Lawsuit: More Than 100,000 Non-Citizens Are Registered to Vote in Swing-State Pennsylvania

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More than 100,000 noncitizens are registered to vote in Pennsylvania alone, according to testimony submitted Monday in a lawsuit demanding the state come clean about the extent of its problems. The Public Interest Legal Foundation, which has identified similar noncitizen voting problems in studies of Virginia and New Jersey, said Pennsylvania officials have admitted noncitizens have been registering and voting in the state “for decades.”

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Kentucky Congressman Proposes to Repeal ‘Gun-Free Zones Act’

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Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, where he made the case that since the majority of mass public shootings take place in gun-free zones like schools, the Gun-Free School Zone Act on 1990 – which makes it a crime to bring a gun on school grounds – should be repealed. “This week I talked to two survivors of Columbine. One of them, Even Todd, related to me his story of being in the library when the two shooters came in. He was the first one shot. He hid under a desk. They found his and he pleaded for his life, then he escaped from the library, ran outside, and there were two police behind a shed.  They had taken up a position and weren’t going in. “Now,  he tells me he that forgives the adults that day. The legislators, the administrators, and the police, because they couldn’t foresee what was going to happen at Columbine. “He said it’s a shame, here we are 20 years later, it’s still happening, and people are rolling out these solutions that will do nothing.” Massie continued, “He supports my bill the ‘Safe Students Act’ which would repeal the federal Gun-Free School Zone Act.”…

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Judge Orders Pilot Flying J Prosecutors to ‘Make a List and Put the Guiltiest on Top’ As Sentencing Phase Begins

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U.S. District Judge Curtis L. Collier issued an order to federal prosecutors Tuesday to “make a list of convicted Pilot Flying J fraudsters and put the guiltiest at the top,” Knoxville News Sentinel reported, as 17 former executives and staffers begin the sentencing phase of their trials after being found guilty in their roles in a massive rebate scam aimed at fleecing truckers who participated in the ill-fated program. The order comes after a jury in the U.S. District Court in Chattanooga found former Pilot Flying J President Mark Hazelwood and ex-staffer Heather Jones guilty of conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud. Former vice president Scott “Scooter” Wombold was acquitted of participating substantially in the scheme, but for a single count of fraud. Account representative Karen Mann was found not guilty the charges filed against her. Meanwhile, 14 other former executives and staffers plead guilty for their roles in the scam since the April 2013 raid of the Pilot Flying J headquarters in Knoxville. Knox news reports: Each of those 17, including Hazelwood, now must face Collier for sentencing hearings. The law requires that Collier assess each co-conspirator’s individual bad behavior and personal history. Collier also must decide each co-conspirator’s…

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Investigation Targets Michigan State’s Response to Reports of Abuse by Team Doctor

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The U.S. Department of Education has opened an investigation into Michigan State University’s handling of reports of sexual abuse by disgraced former school doctor Larry Nassar. Nassar served as the team doctor for USA Gymnastics and for several sports teams on MSU’s campus. During his tenure, he sexually abused more than 260 young girls and women under the guise of medical treatment. He recently received three concurrent prison sentences — 60 years, 40 to 125 years and 40 to 175 years — for child sexual abuse and child pornography.

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Steve Gill Commentary: Teacher’s Union Salaries Far Exceed Payments to Classroom Teachers

Tennessee Star Staff

The State Board of Education instituted a minimum teacher’s salary of $33,745 in 2017, which essentially established a starting salary for the approximately 10 months a year that teachers work each year. Overall, Tennessee teachers receive an average annual salary of over $50,000. How does that stack up against income earners across the country? According to the National Taxpayers Union (ntu.org) the starting salary for most teachers would place the near the top half of income earners. The AVERAGE teacher salary would place an individual teacher at about the top THIRD of income earners. There is no question that the best teachers deserve better compensation, but education bureaucrats and the teachers’ unions have long fought to preserve a system that essentially pays the best and the worst the same amount. Every day, millions of teachers’ union members have money taken from their paychecks to support their union’s liberal political agenda. The TEA/NEA use teachers’ dues money to almost exclusively support the Democratic Party nationally. The activism of the TEA/NEA nationally includes endorsements of candidates like Hillary Clinton, demonizing 2nd Amendment advocates, and supporting abortion with donations to Planned Parenthood . Are Tennessee teachers’ union dues being used to promote their own beliefs…

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Aggressive ‘NRA Boycott’ Expands and Organizes

Tennessee Star Staff

Boycott NRA, a newly formed activist group, has launched a public petition calling for commercial concerns to cut ties with the National Rifle Association. The cause already has topped 30,000 signatures, and it is one of about a dozen similar petitions launched on Change.org, which provides a free online platform for public pleas and causes – to the tune of 1,000 petitions a day.

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Megan Barry Has Increased Size of Mayor’s Office Staff by 60 Percent

Tennessee Star Staff

Nashville Mayor Megan Barry has increased the size of the Mayor’s Office staff from 22 in August 2015, the month before she was elected and sworn in to office, to 36 in February 2018. The Tennessee Star asked Sean Braisted, director of communications for the Mayor’s Office, to explain why Mayor Barry increased the size of her office staff by more than 60 percent during her two and a half years in office, but received no response.   News of this massive increase in her personal entourage comes on the heels of revelations of her increased use of security personnel in contrast to her predecessors and the burgeoning scandal over her extramarital affair with Sgt. Rob Forrest, the former Metro Nashville Police Dept officer who headed her security detail until Jan. 31.   It also highlights a growing concern about a lack of checks and balances and the failure to apply standard internal controls to financial and personnel operations within Metro Nashville Davidson County Government during Barry’s tenure. At least five other examples of these failures have come light in the month since Mayor Barry admitted to an extramarital affair with her former bodyguard. The so-called “computer glitch” in which for…

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Williamson County Citizens Issue Call for the Resignation of Mike Looney Following Alleged Assault of Troubled Student

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Former Williamson County School of Board candidate and outspoken textbook reform activist Laurie Cardoza-Moore is leading concerned Williamson Country residents in calling for WCS Superintendent Mike Looney to step down. Cardoza-Moore and the quickly organized informal group have asked the Williamson County District Attorney’s office to launch a full and thorough investigation into a bizarre incident that resulted in Looney being charged with the assault of a student last week. A public meeting of the Williamson County School Board is scheduled for 6:30 pm tonight in Franklin to discuss the Looney situation. “This past week, a criminal charge was filed against Williamson County Director of Schools Mike Looney following an incident at Franklin High School,” Cardoza-Moore said in a detailed statement Monday morning: Given public statements by Williamson County School Board members, one has to question their level of objectivity and if they see their primary role as defending their employee at all costs or seeking the whole truth, not just Looney’s version of it. If you have been trusting your elected board members to hold their employee accountable, you may want to start paying closer attention. Mike Looney, the director of WCS should be held to the same professional standards…

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House Ethics Committee Confirms Investigation of Rep. Jimmy Duncan

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In a rare move Tuesday, the House Ethics Committee confirmed it was investigating Republican John “Jimmy” Duncan, Jr. for possible violations related to alleged improper funneling of campaign funds to a family member. In 2013, Duncan III – then a county trustee – plead guilty to a felony charge of official misconduct when he was caught paying himself and six staffers bonuses for completing a training program they did not, in fact, take. The plea came after he lied to investigators, claiming he did not know it was improper to award the money before the training was completed. He ended up serving a year of probation. Subsequently, a series of payments Representative Duncan paid to his troubled son totalling approximately $300,000 came to light, apparently, for services rendered during over the course of the elder Duncan’s successful re-election bids. This, presumably, is the subject of the House Ethics investigation. In their statement, the Ethics Committee said it received a referral January 4 regarding Representative Duncan from the Office of Congressional Ethics, an outside agency charged with reviewing ethics allegations against House members. The committee is required to publicly disclose the subject of a review within 45 days of receiving a referral from the office.…

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NRA Accuses Companies of ‘Cowardice’ after Severing Ties under Threat of Boycott

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The National Rifle Association has swung back at companies severing their partnerships with the gun-rights advocacy group under threat of boycott, accusing them of “political and civil cowardice.” In a Saturday statement, the NRA said its five million members would not be deterred after a string of businesses, including Symantec, MetLife, Hertz, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, TrueCar, and airlines Delta and United, announced they will no longer offer discounts for NRA members as the boycott campaign gained steam after the Parkland school shooting.

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Fired Googler Warns Social Media Users About Censored Speech

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Bias and mass censorship from extraordinarily powerful tech companies create an enormous problem that Americans have to come to terms with, says a former Google employee who was fired for his politically incorrect views. While tech companies in Silicon Valley and elsewhere are incentivized to create a “safe and civil” environment for their customers, problems emerge when “they get to define what offensive is,” James Damore said during a breakout session at the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC.

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Commentary: Stop Disarming Teachers When They Enter Classrooms

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by Tom Mullen   In the wake of yet another mass shooting in a public school, a host of familiar recommendations have resurfaced about how to “prevent this from ever happening again.” Predictably, both sides of the aisle are looking to the government for a solution. Americans have somehow arrived at a point where they cannot conceive of human action that is not either prohibited, mandated, or, at the very least, centrally planned. Just Like Drugs The first problem is the goal. It is absurdly unrealistic to believe any set of rules is going to prevent anything from “ever happening again.” If you doubt that, I invite you to examine the war on drugs. Many decades ago, politicians decided American citizens taking heroin was never going to happen again. They banned that drug completely. You aren’t allowed to possess or sell it under any circumstances. Not after a background check. Not with a doctor’s prescription. Not at all. Ban them completely for the civilian population, they say, and mass shooters won’t be able to obtain them. Today, that drug is at the center of what the same government calls an opioid “epidemic.” Epidemic. So much for heroin overdoses “never happening again.” Yet,…

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Mexican Leader’s Visit with Trump Shelved Over Wall

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Mexico and the United States have shelved tentative plans for a visit to Washington by President Enrique Pena Nieto as tensions persist over a proposed border wall, US media reported Saturday. Pena Nieto had already cancelled a visit in January last year because of US President Donald Trump’s insistence that Mexico pay for the wall, which he wants as part of his efforts to curb immigration.

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US Seeks UN Ban on 33 ships, 27 Firms over North Korea Smuggling

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The United States is seeking to have the United Nations ban 33 vessels from ports worldwide and blacklist 27 shipping businesses for helping North Korea circumvent sanctions. The US request to a UN sanctions committee, a copy of which was obtained by AFP, came as President Donald Trump announced Friday the “heaviest sanctions ever” on North Korea over its nuclear and ballistic missile tests.

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Commentary: Is ‘Groupthink’ the Root Cause of Climate Change Hysteria?

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by Christopher Booker   Since we’ve now been living with the global warming story for 30 years, it might seem hard to believe that science could now come up with anything that would enable us to see that story in a wholly new light. But that is what I am suggesting in a new paper, just published in the UK by the Global Warming Policy Foundation, thanks to a book called Groupthink, written more than 40 years ago by a professor of psychology at Yale, Irving Janis. What Janis did was to define scientifically just how what he called groupthink operates, according to three basic rules. And what my paper tries to show is the astonishing degree to which they explain so much that many have long found puzzling about the global warming story. What Is Groupthink? Janis’s first rule is that a group of people come to share a particular way of looking at the world which may seem hugely important to them but which turns out not to have been based on looking properly at all the evidence. It is therefore just a shared, untested belief. Rule two is that, because they have shut their minds to any…

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Beijing Protests US Sanctions on Chinese Firms over North Korea Ties

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Beijing has protested against Washington’s decision to impose sanctions against Chinese companies accused of conducting illicit economic deals with North Korea, the foreign ministry said. US President Donald Trump on Friday announced measures targeting more than 50 North Korea-linked shipping companies, vessels and trade businesses, hailing the package as the “heaviest sanctions ever” levied on the nuclear-armed regime.

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States With Higher Taxes Lose Population While States With Lower Taxes, Like Tennessee, Gain Population

Jason M. Reynolds

News flash: People move out of states with high tax burdens, more regulations and fewer jobs to states with fewer taxes and regulations and more jobs. The former tend to be in Democratic-controlled states, while the latter tend to be in Republican-controlled states. That report comes last week from Mark J. Perry at AEIdeas, a public policy blog from American Enterprise Institute, a think tank. Perry is a professor of economics and finance at the University of Michigan’s Flint campus. He is known as the creator and editor of the economics blog Carpe Diem. Perry refers to a Carpe Diem post he made last month in which he studied household moving data from North American Moving Services’ US Migration Report for 2017. Measures included economic performance, business climate (right to work, for example), business climate and individual taxes. The top five outbound states (where people leave) are: Illinois, Connecticut, New Jersey, California and Michigan. Illinois, Connecticut and New Jersey tied for the worst at 38 percent inbound but 62 percent outbound. The top five inbound states (which gain population) are: Arizona, Idaho, South Carolina, North Carolina and Tennessee. For example, in 2017, Tennessee had an inbound rate of 58 percent…

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‘Hamlet on the Tennessee River’: Bob Corker Attends Shelby County GOP Dinner, Says ‘I Don’t Have Anything to Say’

Tennessee Star Staff

Both Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN), the incumbent senator who said on September 26 he would not run for a third term but has been “reconsidering” that decision in recent weeks, and Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN-07), the frontrunner for the GOP nomination for the U.S. Senate seat Corker is vacating, spoke at the Shelby County Republican Party Lincoln Day Dinner on Saturday night. “I don’t have anything to say but at some point I might,” was all Corker had to say after Saturday’s event about a potential reversal of his decision not to run for re-election. Even the national press corps is finding Corker’s constant back and forth on this a source of amusement. “Hamlet on the Tennessee River,” Washington Post correspondent and NBC News contributor Robert Costa tweeted late Saturday night Hamlet on the Tennessee River https://t.co/N6tBjCWjEu — Robert Costa (@costareports) February 25, 2018 Vaughn Hillyard of NBC news tweeted the following after Saturday’s event in Shelby County: Corker after this Memphis dinner on possible re-elect bid: “I don’t have anything to say but at some point I might.” https://t.co/chUuCKbfbF — Vaughn Hillyard (@VaughnHillyard) February 25, 2018 Several commenters on Twitter pointed out that Memphis is on the Mississippi River,…

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Tennessee House Candidate Aaron Shane Puts Up $150,000 Of His Own Money To Oppose Representative Susan Lynn

Laura Baigert

Local businessman and first-time candidate for the Tennessee House 57th District, Aaron Shane, announced this week that he is putting $150,000 into his campaign to oppose Representative Susan Lynn in the August 2 Republican primary. Shane made the announcement of his significant personal financial commitment after beginning his campaign just two weeks prior on a “mission to protect the families of District 57 and repeal the gas tax increase.” Shane is the owner of Shane Electric located in Mt. Juliet, which is a multi-year winner of the Best of Mt. Juliet award. Now a legal citizen, Shane originates from Canada, where he became an “admirer and student of how our Founding Fathers enumerated our God-given rights in the Constitution,” a stark contrast to “the excessive taxation and government overreach” he witnessed in Canada. “I wouldn’t move back to Canada, if you paid me,” Shane emphatically tells The Tennessee Star. A staunch supporter of the Second Amendment, member of the Tennessee Firearms Association and the National Rifle Association, Shane relays that in Canada if you legally own a gun and your house is broken into, you are still expected to call law enforcement and hope they arrive in time. On his…

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Interior Is Weeks Away From Holding the Largest Oil and Gas Lease Sale in History

Tennessee Star Staff

The Interior Department next month will offer 77.3 million acres for offshore drilling in what the federal agency calls the largest oil and gas lease sale in U.S. history. “Responsibly developing our offshore energy resources is a major pillar of President Trump’s American Energy Dominance strategy,” Interior Deputy Secretary David Bernhardt said in a prepared statement.

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Judson Phillips Commentary: Diane Black and Freedom

Tennessee Star Staff

One of the issues I have worked on for several years has been IRS abuse. The attitude and actions of the Internal Revenue Service towards conservatives has been nothing short of shocking. IRS employees gave 94% of their political contributions to Hillary Clinton. IRS workers were busted for telling people to vote for Barack Obama. Lois Lerner, the infamous former IRS executive, targeted conservative and Tea Party groups. Lerner and her ilk did not simply delay non-profit approval for these groups. Conservatives and conservative groups were targeted for auditing and worse. In 2014, every 501(C)(4) group that was audited by the IRS was a conservative group. What a lot of people do not know is that when the IRS scandal broke in 2013, Lerner and Obama appointees from the Department of Justice were conspiring to prosecute conservatives for the crime of being conservative. All of this leads to something called Schedule B and Diane Black. Schedule B is an addendum that has to be filed by non-profit groups, listing their donors. Left wing groups and left wing Attorneys General want these documents. Why? Because with a donor list, they can harass the donors for conservative organizations and some of these…

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McCain Associate Invokes Fifth Over Anti-Trump Dossier

Tennessee Star Staff

An associate of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is invoking his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself to avoid revealing information to Congress about the so-called Steele dossier assembled to damage Donald Trump in run for the White House. David J. Kramer, a former State Department official, pleaded the Fifth in response to a subpoena issued in December by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Fox News reported.

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Report: Four Broward County Sheriff’s Deputies Waited Outside Florida School During Shooting, Failed to Enter

Tennessee Star Staff

Coral Springs Police officers responded to a school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on February 14th and were “stunned” to find that four Broward County Sheriff’s Deputies who’d arrived before them had not yet entered the school building where the shooting was taking place, according to an explosive report first posted by CNN.

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CPAC-Times Poll: Conservatives Love Trump — But Not So Much the Tweeting

Tennessee Star Staff

President Trump has taken firm reins of the conservative movement in the U.S. according to the CPAC-Washington Times poll that found grassroots leaders on the political right thrilled with just about everything he’s doing – except his tweeting. Mr. Trump scored a massive 93 percent approval rating from the crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

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