Day: August 3, 2018

‘It All Begins With A Song: The Story of the Nashville Songwriter’ Awarded Three Silver Lions at Cannes Lions International Festival

Bethany Bowman
It all begins with a song

It All Begins With A Song: The Story of the Nashville Songwriter, a new documentary that takes an in-depth look at Nashville’s songwriting community, was awarded three Silver Lions at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity recently. “This documentary portrays the strength of Nashville’s creative community and of its music brand,” said Ronnie Smith, Head of Corporate Bank, Regions Bank, and chairman of the NCVC board of directors. “No other city could capture its brand in a documentary of this caliber. It is a unique marketing tool that will prove to be effective, cost-efficient and global in its reach. It certainly goes outside the norm to market a city with a documentary, and this recognition is validation of that effort.” The documentary film was created by the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp as a marketing tool. It was produced by the NCVC, along with John Godsey and VML, a global marketing agency. It was directed by Chusy Jardine of Plan A Films and is being shopped worldwide to major buyers. The Cannes Lions are the most established and coveted awards for the creative and marketing communications industry, and the Festival of Creativity is held in the same southern French…

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Boss Doss Thumped in 70th State House District GOP Primary Loss

Tennessee Star Staff
Tennessee Star

The state legislator who broke the rules of the Tennessee House of Representatives to jam through Gov. Haslam’s gas tax increase in 2017 has been sent packing by voters in the 70th State House District. State Rep. Barry “Boss” Doss (R-Leoma) was thumped at the ballot box by political newcomer Clay Doggett on Thursday. According to results reported by the Tennessee Secretary of State as of 11:59 pm Thursday, Doggett easily defeated Doss in the Republican primary in the 70th State House District, 55 percent to 44 percent, an 11 point margin of victory. Doggett received 4,490 votes, while Doss received 3,584 votes in the GOP primary. He will now face Jessica B. Yokley, who was unopposed in the Democratic primary, in the November general election. Complete final results have not yet been reported. The Tennessee Star documented in great detail all of the maneuvering and legislative sleight of hand deployed by Doss in 2017 to push through Gov. Haslam’s IMPROVE Act, which raised the gas tax by 6 cents per gallon and the diesel tax by 10 cents per gallon. The bill also authorized the 12 largest counties in the state to use the referendum process to increase local taxes…

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Tim Burchett, John Rose, and David Kustoff Win Contested GOP Congressional Primaries

Tennessee Star Staff
John Rose, Tim Burchett, David Kustoff

Knox County Mayor Tim Burchett won the hotly contested 2nd Congressional District Republican primary over State Rep. Jimmy Matlock (R-Lenoir City) by 12 points on Thursday, 48 percent to 36 percent. Final results, as provided by the Tennessee Secretary of State’s office, were: Tim Burchett 47,864 Jimmy Matlock 35,845 Sarah Ashley Nickloes 10,955 Jason Frederick Emert 2,304 In the 6th Congressional District, former Agriculture Commissioner John Rose defeated former Judge Bob Corlew by 10 points, 41 percent to 31 percent. Final results, as provided by the Tennessee Secretary of State’s office, were: John Rose 43,788 Bob Corlew 33,088 Judd Matheny 16,753 In the 8th Congressional District, incumbent Rep. David Kustoff (R-TN-08) defeated Dr. George Flinn by 16 points, 56 percent to 40 percent. Final results, as provided by the Tennessee Secretary of State’s office, were: David Kustoff 57,733 George S. Flinn, Jr. 40,893 Colleen Owens 4,456  

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Gas Tax-Supporting Tim Wirgau Goes Down to Defeat in State House District 75

Tennessee Star Staff
Tim Wirgau

Political newcomer Bruce Griffey defeated gas tax increase-supporting State Rep. Tim Wirgau in State House District 75 Republican primary Thursday night, 58 per cent to 42 percent. The final results, as reported by The Tennessee Secretary of State’s office, were: Bruce I. Griffey 6,380 58.39% Tim Wirgau 4,547 41.61% Wirgau was not the only gas tax increase supporter to lose last night. State Rep. Barry “Boss” Doss (R-Leoma) was defeated by political newcomer Clay Doggett in State House District 70. As The Tennessee Star reported, Wirgau also voted in favor of granting in-state tuition to illegal aliens. In other notable primary races in the Tennessee General Assembly, Brandon Ogles won the State House District 61 Republican primary to replace retiring State Rep. Charles Sargent (R-Franklin), defeating attorney Gino Bulso, who finished in second place. Jeff Ford took third place and conservative activist Rebecca Burke finished in fourth place. The final results, as reported by the Tennessee Secretary of State’s office were: Candidate Votes % Brandon Ogles 3,913 35.45% Gino Bulso 2,685 24.33% Jeff Ford 1,876 17.00% Rebecca Ann Burke 1,604 14.53% Robert Hullett 709 6.42% Terrence A. Smith 250 2.27% Other primary winners included Dr. Brent Moody, who won the GOP…

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Marsha Blackburn Launches Her General Election Bid for US Senate, Declares 2018 Will Be About Security

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Brian Wilson, Marsha Blackburn

U.S. Senate hopeful Representative Marsha Blackburn (R-TN-07) appeared on WTN’s Nashville Morning News with Brian Wilson Thursday morning to discuss her reaction to the fallout from the foul-mouthed Democratic spokesman Mark Brown, as well as her plans for her campaign going forward in the general election against Phil Bredesen. After opening nicities, Brian Wilson asked, “So tell me, where does election day find you this morning? Where are you?” Rep Blackburn answered, “I’m going to be all over Middle Tennessee. Yesterday I was over in East Tennessee, and then today I’ll be in Middle Tennessee, I’m going to go vote – and looking forward to doing that – and then visit with volunteers as we get ready to go through this day. Looking forward to the results tonight.” BW: Well, this is really sort of the kickoff for you, because you are just starting your TV ads. Phil Bredesen has been out there for a while, trying to reach out to, you know, the moderate voters or some of the Trump supporters. He’s saying he can work with President Trump and he’s coming across – reaching out across the aisle – looking for voters on the other side. And yet…

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SHOCK REPORT: California Would Lose Four Electoral College Votes If Only Citizens Are Counted In The Census

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Anti-Trump Protest

by Evie Fordham   The state of California would lose four seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, and therefore four votes in the electoral college, if only citizens were counted in the decennial national census. The report comes days after a lawsuit that argues against including a citizenship question in the national census received the green light to go to trial Thursday, according to The New York Times’ blog The Upshot. Proponents of distinguishing between citizens and noncitizens when apportioning representation would increase the power of states like Louisiana and Montana at the expense of states like California and New York, according to The Upshot. If noncitizens were cut from state population totals and Congress was reapportioned via a constitutional amendment, 11 states would find themselves with a new number of U.S. representatives. California would lose four, and Texas, New York and Florida would each lose one. Montana, Missouri, Minnesota, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Louisiana and Colorado would each gain one, according to The Upshot. New data could allow states to redefine "the people" and draw up congressional districts accordingly. https://t.co/4oWi6l4TF4 — The Upshot (@UpshotNYT) July 31, 2018 Counting only citizens would also bring about changes at the local level. For example, 29 percent of Florida’s population…

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Ohio State’s Meyer Put on Leave, Inquiry Opened

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Urban Meyer

Urban Meyer’s job appears to be in jeopardy. Ohio State placed Meyer, one of the most successful coaches in college football history, on paid administrative leave Wednesday while it investigates claims that his wife knew about allegations of domestic violence against an assistant coach years before the staff member was fired last week. Courtney Smith, the ex-wife of fired Buckeyes assistant Zach Smith, gave an interview to Stadium and provided text messages to former ESPN reporter Brett McMurphy between her and Shelley Meyer in 2015 about Zach Smith’s behavior. Courtney Smith also provided threatening texts she said came from her ex-husband, and text messages between her and other wives of Buckeyes assistant coaches, discussing Zach Smith. “Shelley said she was going to have to tell Urban,” Courtney Smith told Stadium. “I said: ‘That’s fine, you should tell Urban.’” Zach Smith, who has never been convicted of any crimes, was fired last week after an Ohio court granted a domestic violence protective order to Courtney Smith. A message left by the AP for Zach Smith’s attorney, Brad Koffel, requesting comment was not immediately returned. Ohio State Title IX Meyer is heading into his seventh season at Ohio State, where he is…

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Commentary: GOP Rule Number One: Never Take Agenda or Voting Tips from a Democrat

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President Trump w White House Press

by Jeffery Rendall   Don’t you just love it when someone who has no expertise or authority into your (personal or professional) business gives you advice on how to conduct yourself and run your life? Such was the case when former New York Democrat congressman Steve Israel wrote about the gloomy prospects for the Republican Party last week. In a piece titled “Requiem for the Republican Party,” Israel grumbled at The Hill, “…Republican leaders rightly rebuked Trump’s kumbaya with the Kremlin. House Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and others expressed, in proper Washington parlance, their disagreements with the president’s moral equivocations. But it may be too late. They have planted the invasive seeds of demagoguery, and now they cannot prune them with a few soft ‘tsk-tsks.’ “I never agreed with the Grand Old Party on everything when I served as a member of Congress. But I found accord with it on promoting a Western democratic order in the world, maintaining a strong military to defend freedom, and opposing authoritarianism. I supported the global leadership of the Bush administration in combating AIDS. “I hope that party is not over and replaced by a frothing coalescence of our worst instincts. I…

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A Big-Time Tennessee U.S. Senate Race is Looming … in 2020!

Steve Gill
United States Capitol

As voters in Tennessee turn their attention from the just ended primary campaigns, complete with brutal attack ads, negative mailers, hateful radio spots and dinner-interrupting robocalls, get ready for a lot more of the same in the not-so-distant future. No, that doesn’t refer to the November 6, 2018 general election, though it will be a slugfest. I’m  talking 2020! And that election battle started TONIGHT! Tennessee’s Republican Senator Lamar Alexander is up for re-election in 2020, the same year President Donald Trump is almost certainly going to be on the ballot seeking reelection in the March SuperTuesday Primary and the November general election. A recent Tennessee Star statewide poll (June, 2018) of likely GOP primary voters showed Alexander with a dangerously low mix of approval and disapproval numbers. Only 37.3 percent had a favorable view towards Alexander, while 38.1 percent viewed him unfavorably. Alexander was reelected in 2014, receiving less than 50% of the vote in the Republican primary. Alexander lost a dozen counties to Joe Carr in that primary contest, including most of the suburban counties around Nashville, plus Sevier and Blount County in East Tennessee. At this point, Alexander (who will be 80 years old in 2020) is…

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Orrin Hatch Calls Out Democrats’ ‘Dumba–‘ Partisanship Over Kavanaugh Document Request

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Orrin Hatch

by Molly Prince   Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah criticized Democrats on Thursday over their superfluous request to gain access to and review over a million additional documents prior to the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Speaking with other members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Hatch expressed his disappointment in Kavanaugh’s confirmation process, specifically regarding the partisanship on the side of the Democrats. “We can’t keep going down this partisan, picky, stupid dumbass road that has happened around here for so long,” Hatch said, according to a C-SPAN recording. “I am sick and tired of it to be honest with you and I’m tired of the partisanship, and frankly, we didn’t treat their candidates for these positions the way their treating ours.” Democrats have demanded volumes of archived documents from when Kavanaugh worked as a staff secretary for former President George W. Bush, an unprecedented request for a Supreme Court nominee. While Democrats claim Republicans are trying to “hide” Kavanaugh’s past by not releasing the documents, Republicans are claiming Democrats are stonewalling the confirmation hearing. “When you look at Judge Kavanaugh, if you want a choir boy to be on the court, in other words, from…

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Marsha Blackburn Announces Pro-Life Coalition

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Marsha Blackburn

Rep. Marsha Blackburn announced she has assembled a pro-life coalition of more than 500 advocates from across Tennessee Blackburn said, “The first of our rights is the right to life. It is both my duty and honor to protect life, and I am honored to have such a committed group of Tennesseans supporting my campaign for Senate. In the Senate, I will continue to stand for the sanctity of life and the protection of women and unborn children.” Gianna Jessen is chair of the Marsha for Senate Pro-Life Coalition. She said, “I am happy to endorse Marsha Blackburn for the U.S. Senate. As someone who actually survived an abortion and was born in an abortion clinic, I am alarmed, as I observe so many politicians get to Washington, D.C., and care more for the applause of men than they do about the three thousand unborn children that die in America each day. The blood of innocents cries from the ground, like that of the blood of Abel. God remembers each one, and the generations lost with them. The unborn need a defender. Marsha is the woman for this task, for this purpose and for this hour.” The co-chairs are: Lee…

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Liberal-Majority Cities Decry the Environmental Danger of Drinking Straws

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drinking straws

By Natalia Castro   Cities have banded together in recent weeks to launch a campaign against drinking straws. The charge? Straws are sucking the life out of the environment. Lawmakers have started a campaign, the likes of which have not been seen since the war on drugs, to remove this contraband from city streets in an effort to save the people of this great republic. This is not a joke, this is real but rest assured, it is exactly as ridiculous as it sounds. To be fair, these pesky pieces of plastic do have a frustrating way of making milkshakes difficult to drink, but do they deserve the vile and dehumanizing rhetoric the left has thrown at them? I thought these harsh words were reserved for Donald Trump? Apparently, no one and nothing is safe. San Francisco has joined several other California cities in proposing a straw ban. So, while being an illegal immigrant will give you government benefits and a voter ID card, selling a straw could result in a hefty fine. Just kidding, San Francisco doesn’t even require voter IDs. It was just weeks ago when Democrats were arguing for marijuana legalization, so individuals did not sit in jail for…

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Founder of Congress’ Media Fairness Caucus Has a Prescription for Curing Media Bias

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Lamar Smith

by Rob Bluey and Ginny Montalbano   The Daily Signal spoke last week with Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, about media bias. Smith discussed the House Media Fairness Caucus, which he founded, how Americans can combat media bias, and a new term he coined: mediacrats. This transcript of the interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length. Rob Bluey: Congressman, how bad is media bias today? Rep. Lamar Smith: I have to tell you, I’m sure it’s been worse, but I’m not aware of it. What we’re seeing today, I think, is a real threat to our democracy because you’ve got virtually every media platform—and the ones that obviously come to mind are Facebook or Twitter or Google, for example—who have demonstrably been biased against conservative voices, against conservative commentary, and against conservative Republican individuals. And you’ve got a situation where it’s interesting to me that the bias is always [in] one direction. It’s always the conservatives who are either shadow-boxed or censored, or their information is deleted. And all these social platforms—and we just had a recent hearing in the Judiciary Committee—say that they’re going to correct that, say they want to stop the bias. But I remain unconvinced. The reason…

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Latino Groups Go To War With Facebook For Requiring ID To Buy Political Ads

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Florida Immigration Coalition

by Peter Hasson and Joe Simonson   Facebook’s recent policy changes requiring proof of identity to purchase political ads is unfair to Latino immigrants, several progressive groups claimed Thursday. Facebook began requiring users to submit a government-issued ID and mailing address before purchasing any political ads in April as part of the company’s efforts to combat foreign meddling in American politics. A coalition of progressive political groups asked Facebook in May to reverse the ID requirement but claim the company has been unresponsive. The activists said Thursday they will “step up efforts to continue shaming Facebook until the policy is amended” in a press release. “Facebook’s one-size-fits-all policy for so-called ‘political advertising’ has effectively shut millions of voices out of the democratic process and public discourse on the most populous and influential social media platform,” said Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, in the release. “The social media giant must face the fact immigrants and other communities are not the enemy.” “Facebook already has a horrible reputation of compromising its users’ sensitive information, and its new ad policies would force users to give up even more personal information — blocking many Latinx people from fully engaging in the democratic process via…

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The New York Stock Exchange Monopoly Set to Raise Fees to Access Trade Data

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New York Stock Exchange

by Robert Romano   Government-created monopolies are not a new thing, and indeed there are times when Congress has determined that having a government charter for an authoritative, monopoly function can serve a valuable public need. Sometimes these are agencies. The Federal Reserve is tasked by Congress to control the money supply. Sometimes they are Government Sponsored Enterprises. Mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac service millions of home mortgages in the United States. Ginnie Mae, which handles FHA and VA loans, is actually a bona fide government agency, unlike Fannie and Freddie, which are publicly traded companies. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) was a non-profit created to handle the U.S. Department of Commerce government contract to manage the domain name system in the late 1990s that links easy to remember domain names with unique IP addresses. That contract was allowed to lapse in 2016, and now ICANN operates an unregulated global monopoly of the DNS system. Whether these monopolies should have been created in the first place or if the government acts that created them were even constitutional is one matter, one that can be debated and has been debated. But as is often the case,…

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