Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell condemned former President Donald Trump on Saturday as a “threat to democracy,” then humorously asserted the Bitcoin 2024 conference, where the former president spoke, was “secured” and the “threat” gone.
O’Connell made the remarks at the annual Three Star Fundraiser held by the Tennessee Democratic Party (TNDP), which the party titled, “For Our Democracy, For Our Freedom.”
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The Tennessee Democratic Party announced Sunday that its delegation to the 2024 Democratic National Convention has agreed to support Vice President Kamala Harris as the presidential nominee amid incumbent President Joe Biden’s decision to not seek reelection.
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The Tennessee Democratic Party (TNDP) remained silent when The Tennessee Star questioned on Saturday whether it would stand behind Joe Biden despite Biden’s Thursday night debate performance, which reportedly has top Democrats in a panic.
At press time, the party hasn’t made any public statement about the debate on either Facebook or X.
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A federal district court judge dismissed a challenge to a Tennessee election integrity law meant to encourage people to only vote in the primary election associated with their party. District Judge Eli Richardson dismissed the lawsuit on Monday, The Associated Press reported.
The League of Women Voters of Tennessee, Knoxville News-Sentinel columnist Victor Ashe, and real estate developer Phil Lawson filed the lawsuit against the Tennessee Secretary of State, the state election coordinator, and the Tennessee Attorney General in November 2023, The Tennessee Star previously reported.
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The Tennessee Democratic Party (TNDP) announced Tuesday that California Governor Gavin Newsom will be its keynote speaker at its annual fundraiser.
Newsom will headline the party’s Three Star Dinner set at the Music City Center in Nashville on August 26.
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Employees within the Tennessee Democratic Party met with management on Tuesday to create a collective bargaining agreement after choosing to unionize in July, according to WPLN News.
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Former Tennessee House Majority Leader and current State Representative John Mark Windle (I-HD41) is now a former Democrat.
Known for being a defender of Second Amendment rights, Windle switched his partisan status to Independent effective immediately and is running for reelection as an Independent as well.
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After bouncing five Democrats off the ballot in the 2020 cycle, a source familiar with the workings of the Tennessee Democratic Party’s executive committee told The Tennessee Star their next target is State Rep. John Mark Windle (D.-41th District).
The source said Windle, who has served in the state’s House since 1991, is on the block because he supports gun rights.
The plan, if executed, is to have the committee vote to remove Windle from the ballot, in effect declaring him no longer a valid Democrat, after the April 7 deadline for candidates to qualify for the ballot, the source said.
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Tennessee Governor Bill Lee on Monday signed redistricting maps that will change the boundaries for the state’s House and Senate seats, in addition to the lines of the districts for the U.S. House of Representatives.
The congressional map, approved by the Tennessee General Assembly earlier this month, will divide Davidson County into three separate districts, potentially allowing Republicans to flip the seat from Democratic control.
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The Tennessee Democratic Party (TNDP) on Wednesday threatened a lawsuit against proposed congressional maps, if they are fully enacted.
The maps, unveiled by the the House Redistricting Committee, would split Davidson County into three different districts, likely eliminating Representative Jim Cooper (D-TN-05).
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Members of the Tennessee Democratic Party will reportedly pay a substantial fine due to a Federal Election Commission case alleging it misreported millions of dollars in campaign funds. This, according to a report that The Daily Wire published this week.
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Residents from across Nashville celebrated Juneteenth by repainting a 350 foot ‘mural’ dedicated to the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement.
Because the painting was dedicated to the BLM movement, some residents across Nashville found the idea to be controversial. The BLM movement has ties to Marxism, and many supporters sparked riots across the country last summer.
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Incumbent John DeBerry lost Tennessee’s House District 90 to Democratic candidate Torrey Harris on Tuesday. DeBerry lost by nearly 55 points, or just over 11,000 votes.
Although DeBerry had served the office as a Democrat for the last 26 years, the Democratic Party removed him from the primary ballot over disagreements with his views on abortion and education.
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A recent letter issued by the Tennessee Democratic Party in response to the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis calls for “abolishing all voter ID laws.”
The letter was posted on the website of the Tennessee Democratic Party on Friday.
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At the top of the second hour on Monday’s Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy, all star panelist Clint Brewer weighed in on the recent coup against Memphis State Representative John DeBerry and commented that he finds the whole situation to be very troubling. He further went on to express his concern stating that we may have reached a point in this country where you could be removed from your party because you are working across the aisle with other legislators.
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While Kentucky’s governor threatened to take down the license plate numbers of residents who dared to go to church on Easter, Gov. Bill Lee said he was contemplating how involved the government should be during a pandemic.
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The State Executive Committee of the Tennessee Democratic Party, which is majority white, voted Wednesday to oust respected State Representative John DeBerry, Jr. (formerly D-Memphis, now I-Memphis), who is a strong Christian and black, from the Party. DeBerry has served in the Tennessee General Assembly as the Representative for House District 90 for 26 years, since he was first elected in 1994. Of the 66-member State Executive Committee (SEC), 41 voted for the removal of DeBerry, while 18 voted against and 2 abstained, WREG reported. There are currently five vacancies on the committee. More than two-thirds of the current Tennessee Democratic Party SEC membership is white. While the SEC is designed to have one committeewoman and one committeeman for each of the state’s senatorial districts, the current makeup of the SEC is skewed toward women because four of the five vacancies are committeeman seats. The vote on DeBerry’s status within the TNDP was apparently triggered by a 29-page complaint dated April 1 submitted by a Janeita “Jan” Lentz, an attorney according to her Avvo profile. Ms. Lentz, who appears to be white, also identifies herself as the Co-Chair of Memphis-Midsouth DSA, which is the Democratic Socialists of America. In…
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Freda Player-Peters, a former employee of both the Tennessee Democratic Party and the Metro employees’ union, has replaced Will Pinkston as the District 7 representative on the Nashville School Board.
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A Tennessee Democratic Party committeeman is in trouble after he reportedly spoke a little too candidly about problems within his organization.
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Michael Harris, who won election as the new Shelby County Democratic Party chairman in April, is already facing discontent in the ranks, with the politician calling a special meeting to save his position. The Daily Memphian on Monday said Harris is the second chairman of the party, which recently re-formed. Many long-standing executive committee members left, and new people, including Harris, entered the party. During a meeting last week, the Shelby County Democratic Party’s executive committee could have chosen to either take no action on Harris or could have scheduled a meeting to specifically consider the issue, the Daily Memphian said. However, Harris agreed to call the meeting himself within 20 days to resolve the matter. The meeting’s date has not been reported. State Rep. Lamar London (D-TN-91) and State Sen. Raumesh Akbari (D-TN-29) once thought of running for Harris’ position but backed out, letting him run unopposed, the Daily Memphian said. Now, London is calling for unity ahead of the 2020 elections. Harris’ opponents are not backing down. They say that he filed for bankruptcy eight times, leading to the judge to rule he could not file again for five years, Local Memphis said. The Tennessee Star in…
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Tennessee Democratic Party State Chair Mary Mancini won another two year term Saturday as the party’s leader. It was a landslide victory for Mancini over her only serious opponent, Holly McCall, Williamson County’s Democratic Party chair. Mancini received 48 votes from the members of the Democratic Party State Executive Committee, while McCall received just 19, the Associated Press reported. A third candidate, M. LaTroy Alexandria-Williams of Memphis, finished a distant third place with two votes. Another candidate, Christopher J. Hale of Murfreesboro, withdrew from the contest before the vote was taken. Tennessee Star Political Editor Steve Gill said, “There’s an adage “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.” The Tennessee Democratic Party, after years of slipping further into political irrelevancy in the state clearly subscribes to the alternative: “if it’s broken, don’t fix it.” “Party activists are thrilled at Mancini’s re-election. Unfortunately for her party those are REPUBLICAN activists,” Gill said, laughing. Mancini’s four year tenure as chairman of the state party has been marked by abject failure. During her tenure no Democratic candidate for statewide office has come close to winning. The party’s best chance to secure statewide office–former Gov. Phil Bredesen–was crushed in November’s general election for the…
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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 – Gill and Leahy spoke to Holly McCall, Williamson County’s Democratic Party chair and discussed her thoughts on the Democratic Party’s current national narrative about her grass roots movement to replace current Tennessee Democratic Party State chair Mary Mancini. They continued the discussion about the Democratic image challenges McCall faces and her position on how to turn things around. At the end of the segment, McCall touches upon the difference between Southern Democrats and the rest of the country and how the message needs to be talked about sanely and found it unfortunate that some Democrats were unwilling to speak to The Tennessee Star. Gill: We talked yesterday with incoming house speaker Republican Glen Casada and today we thought we’d give you the flip side with Holly McCall who actually ran against Glen Casada for that state house seat in Williamson County a couple years ago. She is the chairman of the Williamson County Democratic Party and wants to be chairman of the Democratic Party for the state of Tennessee. Mary…
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Tennessee Democratic Party spokesman Mark Brown is under fire once again, this time for calling American gun owners the “biggest terrorist organization on the planet.” Fox News reported on Brown’s 2015 Facebook post making that statement. A video of the report is available here. The Fox News report was based on a story by The Washington Free Beacon, which said, “A top spokesman for the Tennessee Democratic Party’s effort to get Phil Bredesen elected U.S. senator has said he views ‘white male’ gun owners as ‘the biggest terrorist organization on the planet.’” Brown is communications director for Tennessee Victory 2018, a project of the state Democratic party that’s been working exclusively on electing Bredesen. The group is hosting Bredesen for a Johnson City meet-and-greet on Thursday afternoon. Bredesen, for whom Brown once worked and is now actively campaigning on behalf of, has yet to denounce Brown’s hateful rhetoric. Bredesen has tried to claim he supports the Second Amendment, but has been given a “D” rating from the National Rifle Association. “The fact that Brown remains employed by Tennessee Democrats despite his hateful comments toward supporters of President Trump and the Second Amendment tells you everything you need to know,” said Tennessee Republican Party…
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Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) provided the cash-poor Tennessee Democratic Party with more than $1 million through the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) he controls, which local Democrats have used to hire an army of 61 Bredesen campaign workers, many of them from out-of-state. The three Bredesen campaign workers –Will Stewart, James W. Miller, and Maria Amalla–who were captured on video saying that Bredesen lied about his Kavanaugh vote are part of this army of left wing volunteers. On April 30, the Tennessee Democratic Party had less than $48,000 in its bank account, according to Federal Election Commission records. During the month of April, only 13 individuals received payroll checks from the party. The group’s poor cash position changed dramatically on June 12, when the DSCC, a political fund that has raised over $98 million this electoral cycle and is controlled by Senate Minority Leader Schumer (D-NY) through the group’s chairman in name, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), gave the Tennessee Democratic Party $495,000 in what is called a “transfer from affiliated organization.” On August 7 the DSCC donated an additional $500,000 to the Tennessee Democratic Party, and has donated an additional $38,250 in eight smaller transaction in June,…
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Lies are piling up on top of lies in the Phil Bredesen campaign, as Fox 17 News has caught the Senate candidate’s spokesman not telling the truth about the explosive Project Veritas Action video. Project Veritas Action sent an undercover reporter into Bredesen’s West End Nashville campaign office, where she filmed paid staff saying Bredesen lied about supporting Judge Brett Kavanaugh for the U.S. Supreme Court. On Friday, Harriet Wallace at Fox News 17 called out Mark Brown, Tennessee Democratic spokesperson, who she said “lied” about the Bredesen campaign workers captured on video when he first claimed that they were interns and volunteers, not paid staff. Fox News 17 sent out this tweet minutes before Wallace broke the story on the 5:30 pm news. FOX 17 News @ 5:30📺 Undercover video by a conservative group claims to show Bredesen staff saying the candidate lied about an issue. The State Democratic Party says those shown in the video are just volunteers and interns, but a FOX 17 investigation reveals otherwise. pic.twitter.com/YHv0hSi72A — FoxNashville (@FOXNashville) October 12, 2018 Brown told that lie to Fox 17 News after the video was released on Wednesday. Brown said the volunteers in the video are not…
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Republicans are raising a ruckus over a spokesman for the Tennessee Democratic Party’s use of foul language and name-calling, especially since that spokesman has been vigorously promoting the candidacy of Democrat Phil Bredesen for the U.S. Senate, who has expressed outrage at being called a “liberal.” The former governor, who is running in the U.S. Senate race against Rep. Marsh Blackburn (R-TN-07), said last week it was “name-calling” when Vice President Mike Pence said he is a “liberal.” However, Tennessee Republicans say Bredesen is deaf when it comes to the many imprecations uttered by state Democratic communications official Mark Brown, the Washington Free Beacon said. Brown, who has been promoting Bredesen’s campaign in his role as a spokesman for the Tennessee Democratic Party, in the past has tweeted “f*** ‘reaching out’ to Trump voters. The idiots aren’t listening.” The Tennessee Star reached out to the Bredesen campaign to ask if the former governor disavowed the Tennessee Democratic Party spokesman Mark Brown, or his foul-mouthed comments about the 1.5 million Trump voters in Tennessee. The Bredesen campaign did not respond. Bredesen’s failure to disavow Brown’s vulgar comments is not expected to sit well with Tennesseans, who are well known for their civility…
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The Tennessee Democratic Party is holding their annual Three Star Dinner Saturday evening in Lebanon at the Wilson County Expo Center. The event was formerly the Jackson Day Dinner until political correctness forced them to drop the reference to Andrew Jackson, the founder of the national party and one of three former Presidents from Tennessee. Alabama Senator Doug Jones (D-AL) is the keynote speaker for the event, which is intended in part to boost the prospects for former Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen in his own campaign for the U.S. Senate. In his race against conservative Republican Roy Moore in Alabama, Jones portrayed himself as a centrist/moderate in order to distance himself from the baggage of being a liberal Democrat in a dark red state. Bredesen is following the same strategy, as he faces conservative Republican Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn (R-TN-07) in a state that President Donald Trump carried handily in 2016. Once elected, Jones quickly revealed himself to be to the left of voters in Alabama. He immediately backed Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Washington liberals to oppose President Trump’s legislative initiatives. Jones has voted against funding the border wall, opposed CIA Director Gina Haspel’s nomination and voted against banning…
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The Tennessee Democratic Party recently passed resolutions supporting “Medicare for All,” a $15 minimum wage and medical marijuana. The resolutions reflect the state party’s lurch to the left. They were passed by the executive committee Oct. 28 and detailed in a Nov. 2 news release. “Medicare for All” is a movement led by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and other progressives that would nationalize health care. “Too many Tennessee families cannot take their children to the doctor when they are sick because they can’t afford insurance,” said Will T. Cheek, a Democratic National Committee executive committee member from Nashville, in the news release. “Eight rural hospitals have closed since 2010 in Tennessee leaving entire communities with no emergency care. Tennessee Democrats are making it clear the priority has to be solving these problems and ensuring that health care is guaranteed to everyone and ‘Medicare for All’ does exactly that.” However, Steven Rattner, a Wall Street executive who advised the treasury secretary under former President Obama, wrote an op-ed for the New York Times Oct. 24 saying that supporting “Medicare for All” would be a mistake for Democrats. Rattner wrote: As a centrist Democrat, I’m scared to see my party pulled into positions that…
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