Former U.S. Attorney Braden Boucek: Leak of Audio Recording Used as Evidence in Trump Indictment Creates Potential Problems for DOJ Prosecution

Former U.S. Assistant Attorney and current Director of Litigation for the Southeastern Legal Foundation Braden Boucek joined The Tennessee Star Report’s Michael Patrick Leahy in studio Tuesday to discuss the how the widely-broadcast recording of former President Donald Trump made it’s way from Mar-a-Lago into the hands of the Department of Justice and then CNN.

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Judge Threatens Parents with Massive Penalties for Challenging School Antiracism Dogma: Lawyers

Two teachers challenging the constitutionality of compelled antiracism training have been ordered to pay nearly $313,000 in their Missouri school district’s legal fees, under a ruling their lawyers called “overtly hostile” and “meant to scare off future lawsuits by parents and teachers.”

The Southeastern Legal Foundation is appealing U.S. District Judge Douglas Harpool’s summary judgment in favor of Springfield Public Schools and the six-figure award against their clients Brooke Henderson and Jennifer Lumley, according to an 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals notice Friday.

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Commentary: Nashville Sidewalk Extortion Faces Court Appeal

If you want to build a house, obviously you have to pay the owner for the land.Otherwise, it is theft. Property rights are the bedrock of a civil society. Just read the Constitution. Personal property rights are guaranteed even against the government by the Fifth Amendment.

If John Smith wants to build a house on land owned by Jane Doe, he purchases the land from her. But what happens when a local government wants to build a road or sidewalk across someone’s property? Unlike John Smith, the government can make Jane Doe sell, but the government must still pay fair value.

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Biden Administration Hasn’t Responded to Court Injunctions on Loan Forgiveness Excluding White Farmers

Man in a blue shirt standing in a cornfield.

The White House hasn’t addressed the court-ordered injunctions against President Joe Biden’s loan forgiveness program that excludes white farmers.  The latest ruling came late last week through a Tennessee farmer’s challenge to the program’s alleged racial discrimination. United States District Judge Thomas Anderson agreed with the Tennessee farmer’s take on the program’s discriminatory practices, ruling the program unconstitutional and issuing a nationwide injunction to halt it on Thursday in the case, Holman v. Vilsack et al. Another federal judge in Wisconsin issued a similar ruling last month, and a little over two weeks ago a federal judge in a similar Florida case offered a concurring ruling. 

The Southeastern Legal Foundation (SLF) and Mountain States Legal Foundation (MSLF) brought the case with the latest ruling on behalf of Tennessee farmer Rob Holman. According to the Biden Administration’s loan forgiveness program in the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, Holman was ineligible for forgiveness on his farm loans solely because he’s white. According to the law, only “socially disadvantaged groups” were eligible for the program granting up to 120 percent of loan forgiveness, re-application for government backed loans, and a cash gift of 20 percent of the loan’s value to cover any income tax liability. Socially disadvantaged groups were defined as those with members who faced racial or ethnic prejudice.

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Nashville Think Tank Files Lawsuit Against Metro Nashville Over Sidewalks

Members of the Nashville-based Beacon Center of Tennessee this week filed a lawsuit against the city of Nashville on behalf of two homeowners that Metro officials forced to pay for public sidewalks.

Beacon officials said in an emailed press release that they are filing the case to prevent Metro officials from holding building permits hostage until individual property owners agree to pay for public infrastructure like sidewalks.

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Nashville Court Dismisses Home-Based Business Lawsuit

  Nashville’s Chancery Court of Davidson County this week dismissed a lawsuit that a Grammy-winning producer and a hairstylist filed against the city’s regulations restricting home-based businesses. The Nashville-based free market think tank the Beacon Center of Tennessee assisted these two individuals, Lij Shaw and Pat Raynor. Beacon Vice President of Legal Affairs Vice President Braden Boucek discussed the matter with The Tennessee Star Thursday. “The court granted summary judgment to the city of Nashville, saying it is rational to keep a little old lady from cutting hair in her garage and threatened to seize the property of a home studio in Nashville,” Boucek said. “The clients are disappointed, but we build these things to be won at the appellate court level from the ground up. The judge is a good judge. We like her, but she felt bound by her analysis to rule based on metro imagining what would happen if these people were allowed to have home businesses and she felt obligated to disregard the actual facts, which showed that they would have zero impact on the neighborhood in any way. It was a deeper Constitutional question about whether the facts matter when it comes to someone’s ability…

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New Tennessee Law Ruled Unconstitutional, Says Beacon Center Official

  A federal judge has halted enforcement of a new state law that state legislators passed earlier this year that forces online auctioneers to get a state license. This, according to Braden Boucek, vice president of legal affairs for the Nashville-based Beacon Center of Tennessee. Beacon is a free-market think tank. Boucek argued against the law in federal court. “We are confident that the law was unconstitutional and today’s ruling reinforced our conclusions. Tennesseans believe in freedom and shared economic opportunity. This law was a step in the wrong direction,” Boucek said. “The judge was correct to find it unconstitutional. As a state, we should be looking for ways to lower the barriers to employment, especially in rural counties. Instead, we passed a law that eradicated hundreds of good paying Tennessee jobs at the stroke of a pen.” In emailed statements to The Star, Aaron McKee from Purple Wave Auction said he was “really relieved that we are able to continue to conduct auctions without having to worry about breaking the law in Tennessee.” “I’m thankful that we live in a country with a Constitution that protects us in situations like this. It is difficult enough to do good business…

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Other States Likely Monitoring Lawsuit Against Tennessee’s New ‘Online Auctioneer’ Law, Expert Says

  Legislators in other states likely want to duplicate a new Tennessee law that’s currently under a temporary restraining order, per a U.S. federal judge, said someone involved in the legal proceedings. As The Tennessee Star reported this week, U.S. District Court Judge Eli Richardson of the Middle District of Tennessee issued the temporary restraining order. The order prevents state officials from enforcing a law that forces online auctioneers to get a state license. The temporary restraining order expires July 11 at noon. An injunction hearing on the matter is scheduled for July 10 at 9 a.m. Legislators in other states, including Louisiana, Mississippi, and Kentucky, will no doubt monitor the case, Will McLemore, one of the plaintiffs in the case, told The Tennessee Star this week. McLemore said he runs an online auction company out of Nashville. “Tennessee is looked to as a bellwether state for auction regulation. It has always been one of the most heavily regulated states for auctioneering,” McLemore said. “I do know there are a lot of other states who have watched this bill passed into law and are looking to it as a model or a possible model for the way they might proceed.” McLemore…

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Beacon Center of Tennessee Files Suit Over New Online Auctioneer Law

  The Nashville-based Beacon Center of Tennessee has filed suit against a new law that state legislators passed earlier this year that forces online auctioneers to get a state license. This, according to a press release Beacon officials released Thursday. The same press release said the state exempts big online auction sites, including Ebay. Beacon is a free-market think tank. “This law is not just unfair but is also unconstitutional, as it clearly violates the First Amendment,” Beacon spokesman Mark Cunningham said in the release. “Beacon is suing the Tennessee Auctioneer Commission before the law takes effect on July 1.” In an emailed statement to The Star, Beacon Vice President of Legal Affairs Braden Boucek (pictured above) said the law is “a step in the wrong direction.” “Tennessee is a state that values freedom and equal opportunity.  A barrier to work is out of step with what Tennesseans value, no matter how ‘in step’ it might be for auctioneers who want to try and debilitate the upstart,” Boucek said. “As a state, we need to be committed to giving people access to good paying jobs, especially in rural counties.” As The Star reported in April, online auctioneers will suffer, as…

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Expert: Tennessee Regulators are ‘Tammany Hall Hucksters’

Adam Jackson, Alarm Board

A Tennessee businessman said he couldn’t sell his state-of-the-art security software because members of a state board told him no. But those regulators, specifically the five-member Alarm Systems Contractors’ Board, said that’s not true, because they never made a final decision on the matter. But go over the video and transcripts of one key meeting, said Braden Boucek, director of litigation for the Beacon Center of Tennessee, a Nashville-based free market think tank. It all boils down to board members telling the businessman, Adam Jackson, he had to get a license to sell his product. The Tennessee Star went over the transcripts and video of one key meeting. Board members explicitly told Jackson repeatedly to get licensed. “At no point do they ever indicate that he might not need a license, or that if he did his business differently, they’d change their mind,” Boucek said. During the meeting, board members read state law to Jackson to back up their position. At another point, board members said they didn’t write the law, but they were trying to uphold it. As reported, this board has existed since 1993. Members meet regularly to license, register, and regulate alarm systems contractors.  They also judge…

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Tennessee Loses Out on New Security Technology Due to State Regulations

Adam Jackson

A Tennessee man who sold state-of-the-art technology that could have kept the state’s churches and schools more secure lost a substantial sum of money because state officials wouldn’t grant him the right to do business. This, according to members of the Beacon Center of Tennessee, a Nashville-based free market think tank. You may not know it, but since 1993 the state has had an Alarm Systems Contractors’ Board. Members meet regularly to license, register, and regulate alarm systems contractors.  They also judge whether they’re competent at their jobs, according to the board’s website. The board has five members, and the governor appoints each of them. “Four of those members are alarm system installers themselves,” said Braden Boucek, Beacon’s director of litigation. Going by what Beacon says, the board, by a 3-2 vote, just reversed an earlier decision to classify Adam Jackson’s product as an alarm system — and that requires a license. “They told him his facial recognition software met the definition of an alarm system that would require licensure,” Boucek said. Jackson produces software that instantly scans the face of someone using existing security cameras and compares the image against known offender databases. Board members, Beacon said, wrongfully determined…

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