Day: May 29, 2020

New Numbers Show Tennessee’s ‘Staggering Increase in Unemployment’

Chris Butler

Officials with the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development released statistics Thursday showing what they call “a staggering increase in unemployment for each of Tennessee’s 95 counties” in April. This, as many businesses closed to help slow the spread of COVID-19, according to a TDLWD press release.

“The unprecedented and historic spike in unemployment impacted some counties more drastically than others, but no area of Tennessee escaped the pandemic’s effect on the state’s workforce,” the press release said.

Read the full story

Commentary: Key Questions Former DAG Rod Rosenstein Should Be Asked at Senate Oversight Hearing

Admin

Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has called up former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to testify in the first of a series of hearings examining the Obama administration’s the Trump-Russia investigations and misuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Graham announced the June 3 hearing in a press release on Wednesday.

Read the full story

Bill Hagerty Announces Veterans for Hagerty Coalition

Chris Butler

Following the release of a detailed plan to support Tennessee’s veterans and ensure they receive quality care in a timely manner, Bill Hagerty Thursday announced the Veterans for Hagerty coalition.

The coalition includes more than 1,200 Tennessee veterans from all branches of the military who strongly support Hagerty for U.S. Senate. Hagerty is running to replace the retiring U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN).

Read the full story

Principal Rachael Bradley Explains Saxon Math and How it is Used at Thales Academy-Franklin

Julie Carr

Live from Music Row Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. –  host Leahy was joined on the newsmakers line by all-star panelist and Thales Academy of Franklin’s Principal Rachael Bradley.

Leahy and Bradley discuss upcoming Thales Academy-Franklin events and the concept of Saxon math. 

Read the full story

Senator Marsha Blackburn Talks About Her Newly Proposed Open Technology Fund Authorization Act

Julie Carr

Live from Music Row Thursday morning on the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed Sen. Marsha Blackburn to the newsmakers line.

During the third hour, Blackburn explained her bill called the Open Technology Fund Authorization Act which would provide safeguards as more  Americans move online with their work and transactions. She added that it was important to protect what she calls our “virtual view” while China shows increased proof of global domination.

Read the full story

Executive Order Takes Aim at Leftist Tech Giants’ Censorship of Conservatives

Jason M. Reynolds

After years of warning, President Donald Trump took action Thursday in the form of an Executive Order to remove a key protection companies like Twitter, Facebook, and Google enjoy that shields the tech giants from lawsuits by individuals and other entities with claiming bias, censorship, and otherwise unfair treatment.

The Order, titled “Executive Order on Preventing Online Censorship” comes two days after Twitter added a controversial “fact-check” of two of his tweets about fraud and absentee ballots, NPR reported.

Read the full story

Mayor Frey Says George Floyd Would Be Alive ‘If He Were White,’ Calls Incident Murder

Anthony Gockowski

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said he thinks George Floyd was murdered and claimed Floyd “would be alive today if he were white.”

Video from the tragic Monday night incident shows a Minneapolis police officer pressing his knee into the neck of a handcuffed Floyd, who repeatedly said he couldn’t breathe. Floyd was pronounced dead shortly after he was taken into custody.

Read the full story

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey Addresses Trump Fact-Check, Asks Media to ‘Leave Our Employees Out Of This’

Admin

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey took sole responsibility Wednesday night after his company applied a fact-check on a tweet from President Donald Trump suggesting California’s mail-in ballot move is “fraudulent.”

Trump’s tweet Tuesday suggesting mail-in ballot votes are fraudulent could mislead people into believing they don’t have to register to get a ballot, Dorsey wrote on Twitter. He also asked people to lay off his employees.

Read the full story

‘Wretched Orange Man’: Twitter Official Overseeing Misinformation Efforts Is Anti-Trump Partisan Who Donated to Planned Parenthood

Admin

The Twitter official overseeing the tech company’s efforts to combat misinformation is a left-wing partisan who in the past has derided President Donald Trump as a “wretched orange man” and said he donated to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of site security, is the man in charge of the platform’s fight against election-related misinformation. Some of Roth’s past political comments from 2016 and 2017 began making the rounds in conservative circles Tuesday after Twitter fact-checked a Trump tweet predicting that universal mail-in voting would result in widespread fraud.

Read the full story

AG Barr Appoints Federal Prosecutor to Review Obama Admin ‘Unmasking’ of Trump Associates

Admin

Attorney General William Barr appointed a federal prosecutor to review so-called “unmasking” requests that Obama administration officials submitted against Trump associates, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department said Wednesday.

Kerri Kupec, the Justice Department spokeswoman, said on Fox News that Barr appointed John Bash, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas, to conduct the review.

Read the full story

Wisconsin to Mail Absentee Ballot Applications to 2.7 Million Voters

Admin

The Hill reports, the Wisconsin Elections Commission agreed to mail out 2.7 million absentee ballot applications to most voters in the state this fall ahead of November’s presidential election.

The vote came just a week after the six-person panel split 3-3 along partisan lines on whether to mail the forms to nearly all registered voters, even if they hadn’t requested one. The bipartisan commission on Wednesday unanimously passed the plan.

Read the full story

Carol Swain Helps NoTax4Nash.com and 4GoodGovernment.com in Nashville to Stop the 32 Percent Property Tax Increase

Julie Carr

Live from Music Row Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. –  host Leahy welcomed Dr. Carol Swain to the studio.

At the top of the second hour, Swain described two local grassroots groups she is working with that hope to offer budgetary alternatives in order to avoid Mayor John Cooper’s proposed 32% property tax increase. She urged people to get involved and make their voices heard by going to NoTax4Nash.com and 4GoodGovernment.com and by contacting their local city council members.

Read the full story

Reports: Largest Concentrations of ‘at-Risk’ Coronavirus Patients Are in States with Best Health Infrastructures

Admin

Many individuals considered to be the most at-risk for coronavirus live in states that had the best health infrastructures in place before state restrictions began in March, according to two recent analyses.

Residents of West Virginia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama, Kentucky, Florida, Tennessee, South Carolina and Georgia were found to be the most vulnerable, according to personal-finance website WalletHub’s analysis of States with the Most Vulnerable Populations to Coronavirus.

Read the full story

Emily Hackett Releases Heartfelt ‘Handle’

Bethany Bowman

NASHVILLE, Tennessee – I first interviewed Emily Hackett in October 2018 when she was featured in my Music Spotlight column. There has been a lot of shifts in the music world since then and we were able to talk about how that is affecting her/the industry.

As mentioned in my column, in 2018 Hackett released her EP By the Sun, and in 2019 she released its counterpart By the Moon which landed her as one of CMT Next Women of Country for 2019.

Read the full story

Genealogy Detective: Michael Patrick Leahy Digs Deep into the Ancestry of Dr. Carol M. Swain

Julie Carr

Live from Music Row Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. –  host Leahy welcomed former Vanderbilt professor Dr. Carol Swain to the studio.

During this segment, Leahy puts on his genealogy hat and looks into Swain’s family tree. 

Read the full story

Bill Prohibiting the Governor from Using Law Enforcement to Enforce Unconstitutional Executive Orders Advances in Tennessee House

Laura Baigert

  A bill that would prohibit a governor of Tennessee from using law enforcement to enforce executive orders that violate constitutional rights advanced in the House State Committee Wednesday. While the bill will serve to address elements of fascism that could be used in conjunction with executive orders such as those issued for the sake of containing the spread of COVID-19, the eloquent and passionate presentation of the bill by its sponsor Bud Hulsey (R-Kingsport) also serves as a straightforward explanation of what happened over the past two months as well as a lesson in constitutional principles. Prior to the legislature’s adjournment on March 19 until June, Hulsey’s HB2291 would have amended a portion of the Tennessee Code dealing with the investigations of police officers. Returning to committee meetings the week of May 25 in preparation for session the week of June 1, Hulsey offered a different amendment to deal with the more contemporary issues related to the handling of COVID-19. Before explaining the specifics of the amendment that makes the bill, Hulsey said he would have to preface it with some remarks about his perspective on what we’ve been through the last two and a half months in the…

Read the full story

Justice Department Says George Floyd Investigation ‘Top Priority,’ Trump Briefed

Anthony Gockowski

The U.S. Department of Justice promised a “robust criminal investigation” into the death of George Floyd in a statement released Thursday.

A joint statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Minnesota, the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, and the FBI’s Minneapolis Field Office said the investigation into the fatal Monday night incident is “a top priority.”

Read the full story

Minnesota Sees Another 28,615 People File for Unemployment

Admin

Minnesota’s unemployment numbers continue to tick slightly upward, according to U.S. Department of Labor numbers released Thursday morning.

The state added another 28,615 to its unemployment ranks in the week ending May 23, down only 278 claims from the previous week’s 28,893 claims. The total number of claims reported last week is 443,254, up 5,564 from the prior week’s reported 427,690 unemployment claims.

Read the full story

Jason Lewis Calls for Curfew Amid Minneapolis Riots, Slams City Leaders for ‘Incompetence’

Anthony Gockowski

U.S. Senate candidate Jason Lewis called on Minneapolis leaders to institute a curfew in response to the ongoing riots that have left portions of the city in ruins.

“For many decades now, with only a rare exception or two, Minneapolis and St. Paul have been governed by liberal Democrats. The promise of a new day or the ‘good life’ has animated their political ascendancy but the reality is things have deteriorated to the breaking point we are now witnessing,” Lewis said in a statement.

Read the full story

Hennepin County Commissioners Call for ‘Immediate Arrest’ of All Officers in George Floyd Case

Anthony Gockowski

Two members of the Hennepin County Board of Commissioners asked the county attorney Thursday to “immediately arrest and press charges against the officers involved in the murder of George Floyd.”

All four officers involved in the tragic Monday night incident have been fired from the Minneapolis Police Department, including Derek Chauvin, the officer who was recorded pressing his knee into the neck of a handcuffed Floyd.

Read the full story

Gov. Walz Activates National Guard in Response to Minneapolis Riots, Declares Emergency

Anthony Gockowski

Gov. Tim Walz announced Thursday afternoon that he has signed an executive order activating the Minnesota National Guard to help respond to the riots in Minneapolis.

Wednesday night’s riots were marked by widespread looting, vandalism, and arson, leaving portions of south Minneapolis in ruins. In one case, a construction site being developed for low-income housing was set ablaze early Thursday morning and collapsed into the street below it as rioters cheered.

Read the full story

Nashville Health Department to Continue Sharing COVID-19 Patient Data with Law Enforcement

Admin

The Metro Public Health Department in Nashville will still provide COVID-19 patient information to first responders and law enforcement.

Metro Public Health Director Michael Caldwell said the practice is “temporary,” but that it’s working, WPLN reported Thursday.

“This is an emergency,” he says. “This is critical, timely, life-saving information that has reduced and contained the spread of this disease within our medical institutions and within our jails. I’m puzzled by why the state reversed course.”

Read the full story