Tennessee Bill Would Change State NIL Law to Match AG’s NCAA Lawsuit

UT Football

The Tennessee Senate approved a bill that would put state law on college athletics name, image and likeness rules in line with a lawsuit brought against the National Collegiate Athletic Association by the Tennessee Attorney General.

The bill would change Tennessee law to allow prospective students to hire an agent and would eliminate fair market value limitations on athlete pay.

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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skmretti Calls on U.S. Senate to Pass the Laken Riley Act

TN AG

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti joined a coalition of 25 other state attorneys general in sending a letter to leaders in the U.S. Senate urging the immediate passage of the Laken Riley Act.

Laken Riley, the 22-year-old Georgia nursing student, was allegedly killed at the hands of an illegal Venezuelan immigrant while on a jog near campus.

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‘Constitutional Crisis:’ Maine Bill Nationalizes Transgender Hormones as the U.K. Halts Them for Kids

Child at doctor's visit

Conservative elected officials sometimes accuse California of making policy choices for all Americans by dint of its population size and concomitant regulatory power.

Now they are threatening legal action against a Golden State mini-me for legislation that would purportedly override other states’ laws restricting abortion as well as puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and genital surgeries for gender confusion.

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Mark Pulliam Says Nullification Movement ‘Not Constitutional,’ Argues Best Way to Challenge Federal Law Is Through the Courts

Mark Pulliam

Mark Pulliam, a retired attorney and Misrule of Law blogger, said a series of nullification bills introduced in the Tennessee General Assembly are not constitutional despite seemingly being an “easy fix” to federal overreach.

“A lot of people these days come up with these theories and solutions of problems that sound good, that seem like it’s an easy fix, but they’re just not, at the end of the day, serious, and in some cases not workable, and in some cases not constitutional, and this whole nullification movement…is an example of one of those, I think, shamiracle solutions,” Pulliam explained on Monday’s episode of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show.

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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti Sends Letter to Meta Demanding Instagram Stop Monetizing Child Exploitation

Kids on Phone

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti has joined a coalition of 26 other state attorneys general in sending a letter to Meta, the parent company of social media giants Facebook and Instagram, demanding that Instagram stop monetizing child exploitation content.

Citing reporting from The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, the coalition of attorneys general expressed concern over news that Instagram has “actively promoted” to “likely pedophiles” content created by “adults seeking to profit from exploiting their own children.”

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Commentary: Giving the FTC More Power Won’t Keep Kids Safe Online

We have seen a rise in parents concerned about social media’s impact on our children across Tennessee and America. As a proud parent and the chairman of Latinos for Tennessee, I firmly believe that parents must play a central role in ensuring the safety of our children online. I also firmly believe in states’ rights and that when it comes to enforcing legislation to protect our children, I trust Tennessee’s own Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti much more than the bureaucrat-heavy Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

I have previously written that the well-being of future generations depends on our federal representatives taking appropriate action to protect children by empowering parents. This issue has become even more pressing as children increase their daily screen time. As a leader in the Latino community, I worry because, “Latino adolescents have a higher rate of social media use” and “face greater risks of experiencing adverse mental health outcomes,” according to the Julian Samora Research Institute at Michigan State University.

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Tennessee AG Leads Charge Against Biden Admin Plan to Have Government Cut Back on Single-Use Plastic

Plastic Straws

A coalition of Republican state attorneys general led by Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti is fighting a federal agency’s proposal to massively reduce the amount of single-use plastics consumed by the government.

The General Services Administration (GSA) —  which provides centralized procurement for the federal government and offers office products and other services to federal agencies — proposed a rule in late December 2023 that would put the federal government on track to significantly reduce its use of single-use plastic packaging in an effort to be environmentally friendly. Skrmetti and 13 other state attorneys general argued in comments filed Monday that the policy exceeds the agency’s authority, and that it would decrease the efficiency of federal procurement and increase costs while failing to do much for the environment.

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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti Details Consumer Protection Lawsuit Against BlackRock’s ESG Investing

TN AG Courtroom

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti said his consumer protection lawsuit against BlackRock’s Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance (ESG) investing will force the company to disclose if it is mixing ESG factors when making investment decisions instead of focusing on financial factors relative to the rate of return.

Skrmetti filed his lawsuit against BlackRock in December 2023, alleging that the hedge fund has misled consumers in Tennessee about the scale and impacts of its ESG initiatives for several years.

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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti Joins Letter Warning the Biden Administration About Its Liquified Natural Gas Export Pause

DOE Biden

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti joined a 23-state coalition in sending a letter to President Joe Biden and United States Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm regarding the administration’s pause on the export of liquified natural gas (LNG) in the name of climate change.

Last month, the Biden administration announced a temporary pause on pending decisions on exports of LNG to “non-FTA countries until the Department of Energy can update the underlying analyses for authorizations.”

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Clint Brewer Says Tennessee’s Lawsuit Against the NCAA ‘Isn’t Just About College Sports’

UT Football

All-star panelist Clint Brewer joined Tuesday’s edition of The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy where he offered his thoughts on Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti’s antitrust lawsuit against the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).

Skrmetti joined Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares in filing the lawsuit against the NCAA last week, arguing the organization violates federal antitrust laws with its “anticompetitive restrictions on the ability of current and future student-athletes to benefit from their name, image, and likeness (NIL).”

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Tennessee to Receive More than $9 Million from Settlement with Publicis Health

TN AG Skrmetti Settlement

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti announced Thursday his office was apart of a $350 million multistate settlement with Publicis Health to resolve investigations into the marketing firm’s role in the prescription opioid crisis.

The Volunteer State will receive more than $9 million from the settlement, with a majority of the funds placed into the state’s Opioid Abatement Trust Fund to support local efforts addressing the opioid epidemic.

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Tennessee Attorney General Joins Letter Supporting Texas’ Border Defense Barriers

Skrmetti Border

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti joined a coalition of 26 other attorneys general in sending a letter to the Biden administration proclaiming support for the steps Texas has taken at its border with Mexico to prevent illegal immigrant crossings.

Last week, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in favor of the Biden administration to allow Border Patrol agents to cut through or move razor wire Texas installed on its border with Mexico to prevent illegal entries into the U.S.

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Commentary: Tennesseans Deserve Investment Transparency

For the first time in the United States, an investment firm is being sued for its misleading Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investment strategies, and our state is leading the charge.

Tennessee State Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti accused BlackRock, Inc. of deceiving Tennesseans by downplaying their ESG-related investment goals and pressuring corporate boards to do the same.

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Tennessee Attorney General Skrmetti Warns Instagram Effects ‘Catastrophic’ on Teens, Cites Unredacted Complaint Against Meta

Friends Phone

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti told The Tennessee Star in a Thursday phone interview that his office’s unredacted lawsuit against Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, shows the company is using strategies to increase Instagram user engagement which are “catastrophic” to teenage girls, and warned that other social media companies may soon land within his crosshairs.

Speaking to The Star, Skrmetti explained that his office’s unredacted complaint against Meta, which it released last week, outlines “a very sophisticated effort by a very sophisticated company to design a product that kids would have a hard time not using.” Meta’s focus on children, Skrmetti said, was motivated by a desire to keep them using the platforms into adulthood, when the company will have collected years worth of data that can be used by advertisers.

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Unmasking Academic Injustice: Dr. Carol Swain Reveals Deeper Impact on Scholarly Integrity amid Plagiarism Scandal at Harvard

Carol Swain Harvard

Esteemed former Vanderbilt professor, renowned scholar, and all-star panelist Dr. Carol Swain joined The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Tuesday to discuss the growing scandal involving Harvard’s Claudine Gay and increasingly difficult-to-defend allegations of plagiarism by the Ivy League school’s president.

Swain contends that Gay failed to credit her for sections of the book Black Faces, Black Interests, accusing her of derivative work since her dissertation, which Swain claims builds upon her own groundbreaking research.

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Tennessee A.G. Jonathan Skrmetti on His First-in-the-Nation Lawsuit Against BlackRock for Alleged Consumer Protection Violations

TN AG Courtroom

Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti appeared in-studio on Tuesday’s edition of The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy, to discuss the first-of-its-kind lawsuit his office filed Monday against financial services giant BlackRock over alleged violations of consumer protection laws.

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Tennessee A.G. Skrmetti Puts BlackRock on Notice About ESG: ‘It’s Not for Big Financial Companies to Decide What Policies Everybody in a Given Industry Should Follow’

AG Skrmetti

Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti appeared in-studio on Tuesday’s edition of The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy, where he laid out the reasons why BlackRock’s alleged double standards that they are pushing Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) initiatives that effectively force companies to shift their priorities are not just afoul consumer protection laws.

If left unchecked, Skrmetti argues, the opaque and unaccountable nature of corporate policymaking threatens the foundational principles of self-governance.

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Attorney General Skrmetti Files Complaint Against DHS and ICE After the Agencies Failed to Provide Information on Illegal Migrants Being Bussed to Tennessee

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti filed an official complaint against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Monday, alleging the two entities have failed to produce documents regarding the release of immigrant detainees into Tennessee.

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Tennessee AG Pushes Back on the Biden Administration’s Proposed Rule on Water Heaters

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti filed another public comment opposing the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) latest rule to set new efficiency standards for consumer water heaters.

The DOE’s rule, proposed in July, would “prescribe energy conservation standards for various consumer products and certain commercial and industrial equipment, including consumer water heaters,” according to the department.

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Tennessee AG Warns Residents of New Facebook Marketplace Scam

Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti warned Tenessee residents on Wednesday of a scam business that utilizes Tennessee Department of Commerce & Insurance (TDCI) Commissioner Carter Lawrence’s forged signature through a Facebook Marketplace listing.

As part of the scam, according to Skrmetii’s office, a listing is placed on Facebook Marketplace for a nonexistent tractor for sale.

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Tennessee AG Sends Letter to SEC Concerning the World’s Biggest Fashion Retailer’s Business Practices

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti has joined a coalition of 15 other state attorneys general in sending a letter to Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler regarding business practices reported by the China-founded, fast-fashion retailer SHEIN.

SHEIN was founded in Nanjing, China in 2008 has become the world’s largest fashion retailer with an estimated value of $64 billion. The company’s mobile app is currently the fourth most downloaded app in the United States. In addition, the company is one of TikTok’s largest advertisers and pays thousands of social media “influencers” to market its wares to consumers via videos on the platform.

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Tennessee AG Skrmetti Joins New Initiative Attempting to Crack Down on Illegal Telemarketing Calls

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti announced Tuesday his office has joined a new, joint state and federal initiative to crack down on illegal telemarketing calls to U.S. consumers.

Skrmetti’s office joined the Operation Stop Scam Calls intuitive, a partnership with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), law enforcement agencies nationwide, and attorneys general from all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

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Tennessee’s Republican AG Exits Group Sponsored by Woke Companies

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti has left an organization of state attorneys general that has accepted sponsorships from left-leaning companies and nonprofits, The Daily Signal has learned. 

The organization, called the Attorneys General Alliance, is holding its annual conference this week in Rancho Palos Verdes, California. The annual conference, running Monday through Thursday, was expected to attract 850 attendees from the offices of 30 state attorneys general. 

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Tennessee AG’s Office Responds to Reports of Vanderbilt University Medical Center Handing over Medical Records of Transgender Patients

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti’s Office released a statement reacting to reports that Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) turned over medical records of transgender patients to the state’s highest legal office.

On Tuesday, The Tennessean reported that it had reviewed a notice from VUMC informing patients of the transfer of records, which, according to the outlet, the facility said was the result of an investigation into “billing for transgender care services provided to individuals enrolled in State-sponsored insurance plans.”

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