Day: February 27, 2018

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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