Former President Donald Trump released a statement on Thursday praising Georgia Star News journalist Laura Baigert for her investigative reporting efforts.
“Thank you and congratulations to Laura Baigert of the Georgia Star News on the incredible reporting you have done. Keep going! The scam is all unraveling fast!” President Trump said of her reporting.
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Thursday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Senior Reporter for the Tennessee Star Laura Baigert to the newsmakers line to explain the circumstances around legislation for Randy Boyd’s stadium.
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Thursday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Senior Reporter for the Tennessee Star Laura Baigert to the newsmakers line to give her first-hand account of the Trump rally Wednesday morning.
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Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Tennessee Star’s Senior Reporter Laura Baigert to discuss state Representative John DeBerry’s new opponent Torrey Harris.
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Live from Music Row Friday 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 Tennessee Star Senior Reporter Laura Baigert to the newsmakers line.
During the second hour, Baigert weighed in on the recent meeting where Governor Lee decided to remove the bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest from the State Capitol. She found it particularly interesting that it was known and attended by protesters and other local media however seemed to forget notifying The Tennessee Star.
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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. – guest host Ben Cunningham welcomed Kevin and Laura Baigert to the studio.
During the third hour, Cunningham and the Baigerts discussed the protesters at Legislative Plaza who broke their deal with the Tennessee Highway Patrol yet manage to be fawned over by media outlets. The Baigerts added that there is now a large class of people whose job is of political theater by provoking the police and manipulating the news media.
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Live from Music Row Monday 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 Tennessee Star Senior Reporter Laura Baigert to the newsmakers line. During the second hour, Baigert gave a first-hand account of…
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Live from Music Row Friday 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 Tennessee Star Senior Reporter Laura Baigert to the newsmakers line.
During the second hour, Baigert described the scene in Tulsa, Oklahoma where President Trump plans to hold his first post-coronavirus rally at the BOK. She noted that there was an air of camaraderie among the people waiting in line hanging their Trump and American flags.
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On Wednesday’s 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 the Tennessee Star Senior Reporter Laura Baigert to the newsmakers line.
During the second hour, Baigert discussed the two grassroots groups opposing Mayor John Cooper’s 32% property tax increase and how that will affect Davidson County homeowners and renters.
Read More On Thursday’s 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. – Leahy spoke to Tennessee Star Senior Reporter Laura Baigert on the newsmakers line.
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On Thursday’s Tennessee Star Report with Steve Gill and Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 am to 8:00 am – guest host and Nashville Tea Party Activist Ben Cunningham spoke with The Tennessee Star’s own senior reporter Laura Baigert, co-guest host…
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On Friday’s Tennessee Star Report with Steve Gill and Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 am to 8:00 am – Leahy spoke to Senior Correspondent and Tennessee General Assembly expert, Laura Baigert regarding the current “Red Flag” bill proposed by…
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Kevin Baigert, Laura Baigert, and former State Rep. Joe Carr Veteran grassroots activists Kevin and Laura Baigert are joining The Tennessee Star as political contributors and “grassroots pundits.” The Baigerts worked together at the 3M Company in Connecticut for a combined 37 years. When they retired in 2012, they were…
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The day after State Representative Bruce Griffey (R-Paris) filed a bill intended to help fund President Trump’s wall on the southern border, conservative radio and talk show host Laura Ingraham tweeted about it. Griffey’s bill HB 0562, which is being sponsored in the State Senate by Joey Hensley (R-Hohenwald) as…
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After helping to launch The Tennessee Star as an investigative reporter on the Legislative Plaza beat, Kevin Baigert is moving on to use his political connections, activist skills, and business acumen as the Executive Director of the new Roving Patriots PAC. “For years, Tennesseans have saved, worked, and sacrificed in hopes of…
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Monday 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 am to 8:00 am – host Michael Patrick Leahy was joined in studio by veteran grassroots activists Kevin and Laura Baigert to discuss the teaching methodology called “direct instruction.”
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Tennessee Department of Finance and Administration Commissioner Butch Eley announced Thursday that the state’s revenues for May were $1.6 billion or $432 million more than the budgeted monthly revenue.
Revenues for the ten-month period put the surplus at $2.4 billion for the 2020-2021 fiscal year.
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Georgia Public Broadcasting News, part of the taxpayer-funded network of state PBS television stations and NPR radio stations, reported Wednesday, June 16, 2021, that they received from Fulton County all but eight of the 385 missing absentee ballot drop box transfer forms The Georgia Star News has reported on.
After six months and several open records requests, 385 of the transfer forms that document the chain of custody of absentee ballots deposited in drop boxes and transferred to the county registrar during the November 3, 2020, election have still not been provided to The Star News.
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Tennessee’s Department of Health Commissioner Lisa Piercey, M.D. came under intense fire from state legislators and members of the public alike, during a meeting of the Tennessee General Assembly’s Joint Government Operations Committee meeting held Wednesday, for activities interpreted as marketing COVID-19 shots directly to children under the cover of the “mature minor” doctrine.
Prior to the standard business of the committee reviewing emergency rules filed in April 2021, the meeting agenda called for a presentation by the Department of Health regarding a May 12, 2021, letter from Medical Director of the Tennessee Vaccine-Preventable Diseases and Immunization Program at the Tennessee Department Health Dr. Michelle Fiscus that addressed the Tennessee “mature minor” doctrine and co-administration of COVID-19 and routine vaccinations.
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Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced Monday that a thorough investigation will be conducted of Fulton County’s inability to produce the critical chain of custody documents for absentee ballots deposited in drop boxes during the November 3, 2020 election.
Raffensperger made his announcement via Twitter, following the lead story Monday in The Georgia Star News that a Fulton County election official admitted that chain of custody documents are missing for absentee ballots deposited in drop boxes in the 2020 election.
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In a stunning admission about the critical chain of custody documents for absentee ballots deposited into drop boxes in the November 3, 2020, election, Fulton County election officials have said that “some procedural paperwork may have been misplaced.”
This is the first time that an election official has made an admission regarding the occurrence of significant election issues.
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On May 3, 2021, six months after the November 3, 2020 presidential election, Fulton County election officials provided The Georgia Star News with a thumb drive containing 30 files those officials said complied with an Open Records Request made by The Star News. The request made to Fulton County was one in a series of Open Records Requests made to all 159 counties in Georgia to produce all chain of custody documents, known as absentee ballot drop box transfer forms, from that election.
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FRANKLIN, Tennessee — Arizona State Rep. Mark Finchem (R-District 11) told a group of nearly 100 gathered in middle Tennessee that it has been revealed that our elections have been open to manipulation and for much longer than we knew, long before November 2020.
Finchem said that “While many might think it’s a curse, America has been given a gift.”
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Congressman Mark Green (R-TN-07) was the featured speaker along with Americans For Prosperity (AFP) President Tim Phillips at an “End Washington Waste” event hosted by AFP-Tennessee Monday evening.
The discussion focused on President Joe Biden’s $4 trillion infrastructure proposal, which was called out several times throughout the evening for being a “tax and spend” bill.
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Six months after the November 2020 election and after failing on two occasions to produce complete chain of custody documents for absentee ballot drop boxes, the Fulton County Registration & Elections officials advise that “more time is needed.”
Fulton County’s reply to The Georgia Star News came as a response to a follow-up on previously-supplied records related the transfer forms that document the critical chain of custody for absentee ballots deposited over a 41-day voting period in 37 drop boxes placed throughout Fulton County.
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Fulton County election officials provided two different versions of 34 completed critical chain of custody documents for absentee ballot drop boxes from the November 2020 election.
The documents were provided in response to open records requests made by The Georgia Star News, which remain incomplete even six months after the election, The Star reported.
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Ballot transfer forms from Fulton County reveal that 86 percent of the more than 59,000 absentee ballots analyzed from drop box locations, required to be “immediately transported” to the county registrar according to Emergency Rule of the State Election Board for Absentee Voting, took more than one hour to be transferred to election officials.
State Election Board Emergency Rule 183-1-14 relative to securing absentee ballot drop boxes, which went around state law, was adopted by the State Election Board at their July 1, 2020, meeting.
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Six months after the November 3, 2020 election, Fulton County has failed to produce complete chain of custody documents for 18,901 vote-by-mail absentee ballots deposited by voters into drop boxes.
The Fulton County missing documentation is a little more than five percent of the estimated 333,000 vote-by-mail absentee ballots cast in the November 3, 2020 general election for which chain of custody documentation is still missing.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has refused to collect, count, and verify the chain of custody documentation associated with an estimated 600,000 absentee vote by mail ballots deposited in drop boxes in the 2020 general election. Instead, Raffensperger has said it is a county responsibility. The Georgia Star News has filed Open Records Requests with all 159 counties in the state to obtain this documentation and report on it to the public.
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Six months after the November 3, 2020 presidential election, officials at the state and county level in Georgia have failed to produce chain of custody records for more than 333,000 absentee vote by mail ballots deposited in drop boxes located around the state for that election. Joe Biden was certified…
Read More Higher than expected revenues for the month of April resulted in the state’s budget surplus exceeding $2 billion with three months remaining in the 2020-2021 fiscal year.
Commissioner of Tennessee’s Department of Finance and Administration Butch Eley made the announcement Friday that April revenues of $2.5 billion resulted in a $596.7 million surplus for the month of April 2021.
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Randy Boyd’s company, Boyd Sports LLC owner of the Tennessee Smokies, will profit on events booked at the proposed taxpayer-funded baseball stadium to be located in Knoxville.
The arrangement was revealed during a livestreamed Stadium Proposal Public Meeting held on March 25.
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Less than two weeks after being removed from the House Civil Justice, Criminal Justice, and Education Instruction Committees, Rep. Bruce Griffey’s (R-Paris) membership was reinstated by Speaker Cameron Sexton.
Griffey’s removal came unceremoniously at the end of the March 25 House floor session, three days following a testy exchange on the House floor primarily with House Parliamentarian Daniel Hicks, and to a lesser degree Sexton himself, related to Griffey’s use of Rule 53 of the House Permanent Rules of Order for the 112th General Assembly for his proposed E-Verify legislation.
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Five months after the November 3, 2020 presidential election, officials at the state and county level in Georgia have failed to produce chain of custody records for more than 355,000 absentee vote by mail ballots deposited in drop boxes located around the state for that election.
Joe Biden was certified as the victor of Georgia and its 16 Electoral College votes by a margin of 11,599 votes, or less than 0.25 percent of the 5 million votes cast in the November 3, 2020 presidential election in Georgia. According to the Georgia Secretary of State’s office, 1.3 million of those votes were cast as absentee vote by mail ballots. Based on polling conducted by John McLaughlin & Associates, 700,000 of those absentee vote by mail ballots were sent via regular mail and 600,000 were deposited in the estimated 300 drop boxes located around the state and were manually picked up and transported by election workers to the local county registrar for subsequent counting.
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The Tennessee State Election Commission’s biennial, normally unnoticed routine of appointing county election commission members takes on heightened importance in light of recent events and unusual situations in at least three Tennessee counties.
In accordance with Tennessee state law, T.C.A. 2-12-101 and 2-12-106, the State Election Commission (SEC) appoints five election commissioners for each of the state’s 95 counties for terms of two years.
During the House floor session Monday evening, Speaker Cameron Sexton (R-Crossville) spared his members from a Rule 53 vote regarding the proposed E-Verify legislation.
Rep. Bruce Griffey (R-Paris) invoked the Rule 53 provision from the House Permanent Rules of Order for the 112th General Assembly, which is the process of recalling a bill from committee. If a Rule 53 effort is successful, the subject bill would be scheduled directly to the House floor for a vote, bypassing the committee process that killed the bill.
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A member of the Senate State and Local Government Committee is an attorney with a law firm that could benefit from the passage of the legislation enabling Randy Boyd’s taxpayer-funded baseball stadium in Knoxville.
Democrat Sen. Jeff Yarbro of Nashville sits on the Senate State and Local Government Committee, the first stop for SB 0783.
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In an effort to revive the legislation requiring the use of E-Verify for Tennessee employers with six or more employees, Rep. Bruce Griffey filed the necessary paperwork Thursday to recall the bill in accordance with a House rule.
Rule 53 of the House of Representatives Permanent Rules of Order for the 112th General Assembly allows for a process to recall a bill from committee. If the effort is successful, the bill will be scheduled directly to the House floor for a vote, bypassing the committee process that killed the bill.
A bill that was killed last week in the House Banking and Consumer Affairs Subcommittee would have reverted to the threshold required for E-Verify in legislation signed into law by Governor Bill Haslam in 2011 and remained in effect until 2016.
Currently, employers are required under state law to use the E-Verify program to confirm work authorization status of their employees, but only if they have 50 or more employees.
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Tennessee small businesses that experienced the largest increases in the number of employees over the past five years are exempt from the requirement to ensure that their employees are not illegal aliens through the use of the federal government’s e-verification system.
At the federal level, E-Verify is a voluntary program.
Read More A bill that would create equity amongst Tennessee employers as to the required use of the E-verify system was killed by five Republicans in the House Banking and Consumer Affairs Subcommittee, even as thousands of illegal immigrants surge the southern border.
HB 0801, sponsored by Rep. Bruce Griffey (R-Paris), would require employers in the state with six or more employees to utilize the federal government’s E-verify system in hiring future employees. Griffey’s bill lowered the threshold from the current law, which required e-verification for employers with 50 or more employees.
Read More Commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Finance and Administration Butch Eley announced Friday that tax revenues to the state for the month of February exceeded the budgeted estimates by $190.9 million, which puts the fiscal year surplus at $1.3 billion.
February revenues of $1.13 billion represent an 11.06 percent growth rate or $112.7 million more than February of last year.
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A resolution that would determine if a judge committed an offense worthy of removal for changing the law regarding absentee voting was killed in the House Civil Justice Subcommittee Tuesday through several orchestrated actions, which “only emboldened and protected the judiciary,” according to the resolution sponsor.
The resolution failed on a voice vote carried out by Chairman Andrew Farmer (R-Sevierville) with assistance by Rep. Michael Curcio (R-Dickson) who strategically timed his call for the question.
Five of the eight sponsors of the bill that will enable a taxpayer-funded stadium for Randy Boyd’s minor league baseball stadium in Knoxville received a total of more than $90,000 in campaign contributions from several individuals who are involved with the proposed project.
All but one of the legislators are from the Knoxville area and all but one are Republicans while three are freshmen.
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Lt. Governor Randy McNally has decided that effective Monday new protocols will go into effect that will allow greater access to the Senate areas within the Cordell Hull Building.
The revised protocols are due to the increased availability of the vaccine and the overall decline in the spread of COVID-19, according to a late-day email Friday from McNally’s chief of staff addressed to Senate members and staff.
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The Senate Judiciary Committee advanced a resolution Tuesday that would change the way the state’s Attorney General and Reporter for Tennessee is selected.
Senate Joint Resolution 1 would make the current process for nominating the attorney general more transparent and give the Tennessee General Assembly a say in the selection through a change to the Tennessee Constitution.
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A Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) proposed transmission line that will service the new Facebook data center and support future economic development in Gallatin will impact as many as 165 property owners representing about 225 parcels, lowering their property values and raising their concerns for safety.
TVA notified property owners affected by the proposed transmission via letters dated in mid-January, which invited them to access a virtual open house between January 21 and February 22 for further information and the opportunity comment on the project.
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Tuesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed newly dubbed all-star panelist Roger Simon to the studio to discuss the dissolution of Voice of America and his position at Radio Free Europe.
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A long-time Democrat from Knoxville reported Republican State Rep. Terri Lynn Weaver to Washington D.C. law enforcement for being at the Capitol on January 6.
The story was reported Thursday by The Tennessee News Journal (TNJ).
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Lt. Gov. and Speaker of the Senate Randy McNally (R-Oak Ridge) announced Wednesday the state Senate committee assignments for the 112th General Assembly.
McNally praised his fellow Senate members in announcing the assignments.
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Less than a week after making the announcement that he would be leaving the Democrat Party to join the Republican Party, Georgia State Rep. Vernon Jones will be a keynote speaker at the Nashville Young Republicans monthly meeting Tuesday evening.
It was a history-making moment at the Save America March in Washington, D.C. last Wednesday, when Jones announced he would be officially joining the Republican Party.
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