Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr announced this week that Clarence Dean Alford, a former member of the Board of Regents, has pleaded guilty to racketeering. Alford pleaded guilty before Chief Superior Court Judge Robert F. Mumford.
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The people who manage the Nashville Electric Service (NES) announced this week that they will automatically start rounding up their customers’ bills to the nearest dollar to pay for home energy upgrades for low income customers. NES currently has about 420,000 customers. The program, according to a press release, begins January 1.
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Georgia House Majority Caucus Whip Matt Hatchett (R-Dublin) on Thursday announced he has appointed his Majority Caucus Whip Team for the remainder of the 2021-2022 legislative term. This, according to a press release that Hatchett published on the Georgia General Assembly’s website.
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Georgia U.S. Representative Andrew Clyde (R-GA-09) this month took U.S. Transportation Secretary David Pekoske to task over illegal immigrants crossing over into the United States without having to produce a negative COVID-19 test. This goes on, Clyde said, while Americans and people with valid visas must produce a negative COVID-19 test to enter the United States.
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The newly formed Williamson Families PAC on Tuesday announced the digital launch of its website and social media, in time for the Franklin City Alderman election. This, according to a press release that the PAC sent via email.
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Ten people have applied to replace Brad Fiscus on the Williamson County School Board. On Wednesday exactly half of them discussed their positions on COVID-19 mask mandates and whether public schools at the K-12 level should teach Critical Race Theory (CRT).
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Major League Baseball (MLB) is, according to one Washington Examiner commentator, “chasing after the Chinese market while pretending that places such as Atlanta are the locus of evil in the modern world.” Commentary Fellow Zachary Faria said in the publication this week that the MLB “is taking a page out of the NBA’s book when it comes to social justice politics.”
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A Nolensville mother says Williamson County School (WCS) System officials suspended her two children indefinitely because they won’t wear their COVID-19 masks on campus. Both children attend Mill Creek Middle School.
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Officers with the Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) have been plenty busy the past few days, due to several high-profile crimes, including a suspect who allegedly forced himself into another man’s car and kidnapped the man. “Around 4 a.m. a 28-year-old victim was stopped at a red light on Haywood Lane near I-24 when he said the suspect entered the passenger side. The suspect held the victim and driver of the car at knifepoint,” MNPD officials said in a press release.
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Georgia Department of Education (GADOE) officials announced Tuesday that they are giving $4.9 million in competitive grants to support school improvement efforts in 14 school districts and state charter schools. This, according to a press release that GADOE officials published on their website.
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Meagan Hanson, a Republican running in a competitive race to unseat incumbent Georgia U.S. Representative Lucy McBath (D-GA-06), said Tuesday said that her opponent is snubbing questions about the new federal spending bill. “In a desperate attempt to avoid answering for her radical agenda, Congresswoman Lucy McBath spent the weekend dodging questions about her support for Nancy Pelosi’s trillion-dollar spending package,” Hanson said in an emailed press release.
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Some of the Tennessee’s educators said in a new survey that they worried about students missing class time during the time of COVID-19. Officials with the Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE) and the Tennessee Education Research Alliance (TERA) on Sunday released what they said were key findings and responses from the 2021 Tennessee Educator Survey from 40,000 educators.
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Fulton County School System officials are currently fighting to keep a COVID-19 mask mandate in place while they’re also trying to clamp down on reported vandalism and violence within the schools. The Atlanta-based Reporter Newspapers said late last week that several parents want a Fulton County judge to issue a temporary restraining order and restrict the schools from imposing a mandatory mask mandate.
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Authorities are looking at Metro Nashville School Board member John Little for living outside the district he represents. Little said Monday that he actually has two homes, one of which is within the boundaries of his school district.
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Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) Chief John Drake announced last week that full body-worn and in-car camera deployment across the entire MNPD is now complete. “After project completion at all eight precincts in mid-July, training and camera distribution continued to officers in all other remaining police department components,” according to a press release that the MNPD published.
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One member of the Georgia General Assembly wants a statue of Clarence Thomas on the state capitol grounds, but one Democrat vigorously opposes the idea and the way she stated her opposition left some people shocked.
Georgia State Representative Donna McLeod (D-Lawrenceville) stated those remarks when she spoke to The Atlanta Journal Constitution late last week.
“I’d rather them keep a Confederate monument than a statue of [Supreme Court Justice] Clarence Thomas,” McLeod reportedly told the paper.
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Two candidates have announced to run for the seat currently held by Georgia State Senator Burt Jones (R-Jackson). Jones announced in August that he will run for lieutenant governor.
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U.S. Representative Steve Cohen (D-TN-09) this week criticized progressives in Congress and said that their actions on the federal infrastructure bill could send former U.S. President Donald Trump back to the White House in 2024. Cohen made his remarks on CNN.
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Five Democrats in the Georgia General Assembly said that the Georgia Department of Labor (GDOL) has created a program that could put them and other state legislators in legal jeopardy. GDOL spokeswoman Kersha Cartwright said Friday that this Legislative Portal Access pilot program gives legislators and members of their respective staffs access to certain unemployment information. Legislators may use this information to act on behalf of their constituents. But each constituent must grant his or her consent first, Cartwright said.
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U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) said Friday that she and U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) have formally asked U.S. President Joe Biden to tell the massive migrant caravan approaching the U.S. southern border to turn around. Blackburn and Graham addressed Biden in a letter dated Thursday.
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Members of the Metro Nashville Community Oversight Board (COB) this week considered a complaint that an alleged drug dealer filed against four Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) detectives. The complainant, a female, alleged improper search and seizure. She also said the four detectives threatened her with eviction if she did not consent to the search.
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Officials with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Georgia have sentenced the owner of a Russian energy company to federal prison for his role in a scheme to evade U.S. national security laws. This, according to a press release that the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Georgia published this week.
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Members of the Georgia General Assembly are scheduled to convene a three-week long special session starting November 3 where they will hold hearings and discuss whether Buckhead should incorporate as a municipality separate from Atlanta. This, according to a press release that members of the Buckhead City Committee emailed this week.
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Members of the Special Bombing Review Commission on Tuesday discussed rumors that the man accused of setting off a bomb on Second Avenue North on Christmas morning last year originally might have targeted Nashville’s Hermitage Hotel. That man, Anthony Quinn Warner, died in an explosion that authorities accused him of setting off last year on Second Avenue around 6:30 a.m. on December 25. The explosion also damaged at least 41 businesses and collapsed one building.
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Georgia Department of Education (GaDOE) officials have developed an ESSER funding dashboard that they say reveals to the public how the state’s school districts’ use federal COVID-19 relief funds. This, according to a press release that GaDOE officials emailed Wednesday.
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Georgia Governor Brian Kemp has scheduled a press conference Thursday alongside state Public Health Commissioner Kathleen Toomey to update the public about their efforts to combat COVID-19. This, according to a press release that members of Kemp’s office emailed on Wednesday.
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A U.S. district court has ruled in favor of Tennessee Attorney General Herbert H. Slatery in his lawsuit to stop the Biden administration from enforcing what Slatery called an unconstitutional tax mandate. Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron collaborated with Slatery and was also a party to the suit.
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BRENTWOOD — Staff at the Brentwood-based Sullivan Dental Partners held a grand opening celebration Tuesday at their new state-of-the-art dental office. Sullivan Dental Partners has operated since 1970, but staff wanted to thank members of the community for their past patronage and to let them know that they are moving forward with new innovations.
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Georgia Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan (R-Cumming) and State Senator John Kennedy (R-Macon) have released a proposed draft of new Georgia Congressional Districts. Kennedy chairs the Georgia State Senate Redistricting and Reapportionment Committee.
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Members of the Williamson County-based Tennessee Stands said rulings coming down from U.S. District Courts regarding what they call unlawful mandates, particularly those coming from Tennessee, prove “that reasoning has lost and politics wins the day.” Federal courts have cited the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in saying that Tennessee Governor Bill Lee’s Executive Order 84 that gives parents the right to opt out of school mask mandates is unlawful. The courts say the mandate prevents schools from providing reasonable accommodations to students with disabilities.
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Georgia U.S. Rep. Rick Allen (R-GA-12) has outlined what he said were alarming new numbers about how many people are crossing the U.S.-Mexico border into Texas. Allen made his remarks on the floor of the U.S. House late last week.
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Georgia U.S. Senate Republican candidate Herschel Walker leads incumbent U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock (D-GA) by five points in a new poll, roughly 46 percent to 41 percent. This, according to a new poll that Creative Destruction (CD) Media published Saturday.
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Stacey Abrams’ Fair Fight reportedly asked the chancellor of the University of California, Irvine to disinvite Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger from an event at the school late last week. But university officials did not comply with Abrams’ wishes. Organizers titled the event “Election Subversion.”
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Cancel culture has forced one Nashville Symphony performer out of a job, but this musician has an impressive resume and he and former colleagues of his say the allegations leveled against him are completely unfounded. This, according to former Nashville Symphony Orchestra clarinetist James Zimmermann, who recently lost his position due to what he said were false accusations of racial harassment. Last week, The Washington Free Beaconprofiled Zimmermann and how the Nashville Symphony dismissed him as part of what that publication said was “an ideological cold war.”
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Tennessee Department of Health (TDOH) official Michelle Fiscus apparently did not purchase a dog muzzle through Amazon.com and send it to her state office so she could later frame someone else for the act. The Nashville-based WSMV reported this week that someone, whom the station did not identify, set up a fraudulent account in Fiscus’ name and then sent the muzzle to Fiscus’ office.
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Former U.S. President Donald Trump held a rally Saturday in Perry, where he introduced the candidates he wants Georgia voters to help elect in the 2022 elections. “One year from now Georgia will be a central battleground in our fight to rescue our beloved nation,” Trump told the audience.
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Members of the Georgia Department of Revenue (DOR) abused their powers and violated ethical and regulatory policies, according to a report that the Office of the State Inspector General (OIG) published this week. Georgia officials are supposed to distribute civil asset forfeiture funds to the state treasury. Officials with the DOR’s Office of Special Investigations (OSI) broke state law when they didn’t remit state asset forfeiture funds to the state general fund. Former OSI Director Joshua Waites failed to properly remit $5.3 million collected via state asset forfeiture between July 1, 2015 to March 11, 2020, the date of Waites’ termination from his position, the report said.
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Staff for Tennessee Governor Bill Lee on Friday would not say whether he will follow the lead of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and purchase thousands of monoclonal antibody treatments directly from GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). GlaxoSmithKiline manufactures the monoclonal antibody treatments.
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Metro Nashville Council Member Dave Rosenberg is allegedly trying to change the zoning of a property to hurt the property owners, with whom he allegedly has stark political differences. One of the property owners, Nashville businessman Crom Carmichael, said the property involves an abandoned rock quarry on McCrory Lane. Carmichael said he and Nashville investor Townes Duncan have owned the property for roughly 15 years.
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Tennessee Comptrollers released a report Thursday that addressed what they said was the rising costs of college textbooks in the state. “Although the cost of course materials is only one component of the cost of a postsecondary education, by the time a student obtains a degree, the total spent on course materials can equal the cost of an additional semester of tuition at some four-year institutions. The report discusses initiatives among the state’s higher education institutions to make college course materials more affordable,” according to a press release that the Tennessee Comptroller’s Office of Research and Education Accountability emailed Thursday.
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Staff for U.S. Representative Buddy Carter (R-GA-01) said Thursday he will not run for the United States Senate to replace incumbent U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock (D-GA). Carter will instead support Herschel Walker, a Republican, to run against and then replace Warnock.
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Democrats in the Georgia House of Representatives are scheduled to hold a hearing Thursday to discuss how state officials manage and secure the state’s prisons. Members of the Georgia House Democratic Caucus Committee on Crisis in Prisons are scheduled to hold the hearing at 1 p.m., Thursday, September 23, in Room 132 of the Georgia State Capitol.
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Officials with two pharmaceutical companies who produce monoclonal antibody treatments said Wednesday that the U.S. government distributes the currently-available supply of those treatments and that those companies may not sell them to hospitals or state governments. A spokesman for the New York state-based Regeneron, who identified himself only as Alex, said the U.S. government owns the currently available supply of REGEN-COV, which is the company’s monoclonal antibody treatment. The U.S. government allocates that product to state governments.
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U.S. Representative Drew Ferguson (R-GA-03) this week said Democrats on the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee blocked every amendment he added to what he called that party’s $3.5 trillion tax-and-spend budget proposal. Ferguson serves on the committee.
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Georgia State Sen. Jason Anavitarte (R – Dallas) has called upon his colleagues in the Georgia General Assembly to place a statue of U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas on the state capitol grounds. This, according to a press release that Anavitarte emailed Tuesday.
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Tennessee Department of Health officials said this week that only the unvaccinated should take monoclonal antibody treatments. Monoclonal antibodies, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s website, are laboratory-made proteins that mimic the immune system’s ability to fight off harmful pathogens such as viruses. Houston Methodist said monoclonal antibody infusion treats COVID-19 and can help prevent hospitalizations, “reduce viral loads and lessen symptom severity.”
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Members of VoterGA want to inspect Fulton County’s mail-in ballots after four senior poll managers signed sworn affidavits indicating they handled counterfeit ballots during the Fulton County hand count audit. On Monday, in McDonough, VoterGA co-founder Garland Favorito said court officials made a decision and ultimately “kicked the can down the road.”
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U.S. Representative Austin Scott (R-GA-08) said a new Biden administration proposal would require financial institutions and other financial service providers to report all inflows and outflows on accounts that have more than $600. And this proposal, Scott told constituents in an emailed newsletter Sunday, would create a huge privacy issue for Americans and burden local banks and credit unions.
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A seven-count indictment unsealed this month charged two Danville, California men with conspiracy to defraud the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) of more than $300,000. This, according to a press release that staff with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Middle District of Tennessee published on their website.
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Federal officials in Georgia have sentenced reality TV star Maurice Fayne to more than 17 years in federal prison for making false statements to a financial institution related a fraudulent Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan application. Fayne starred in the series Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta.
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