Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) has added her name to a bill that would prevent federal funding from going to cities with “violent anarchist jurisdictions.”
The bill, carried by Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), defines an anarchist jurisdiction as a city or state that abdicates its constitutional duty to its citizens to uphold the rule of law, or fails to provide police, fire, or emergency medical services to its residents, according to Blackburn’s office.
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Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN-09) urged Gov. Bill Lee to remove a bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest from the State Capitol and rename a state park that bears his name.
In a letter sent to Lee Monday, Cohen asked the Republican governor to “demonstrate leadership on an issue that causes so much pain in the Black community in Tennessee.”
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Gov. Bill Lee announced a new partnership last week with law enforcement agencies across the state in an effort to reform policing in Tennessee.
“The intent of this partnership is the desire to ensure law enforcement are consistently reflecting the values of the communities they serve,” Lee explained in a press release.
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Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) called President Donald Trump’s Independence Day speech at the annual Salute to America celebration “one of the best” of his presidency.
The president delivered back-to-back speeches over the holiday weekend, the first of which took place Friday night in front of Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. In both addresses, Trump delivered an unapologetic defense of American culture and history, mercilessly deriding the “cancel culture.”
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As of Sunday night Tennessee has had a total of 51,431 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 646 deaths. Officials at The Covid Tracking Project reported the latest numbers on their website Sunday night. The website also reported that the virus has hospitalized 2,871 Tennesseans. Exactly 949 of those Tennesseans remain…
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Gov. Bill Lee signed an executive order Friday granting the mayors of 89 counties the authority to issue local face mask mandates.
Six Tennessee counties – Sullivan, Knox, Hamilton, Davidson, Madison, and Shelby – have local health departments, and therefore already have the authority to issue mask requirements as needed, Lee’s office explained.
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Former Haywood County Mayor Franklin Smith filed a false accident claim after his wife was involved in an auto accident in May 2018 while she drove a county-owned vehicle, according to Tennessee Comptrollers.
Comptrollers did not identify the former county mayor by name in a report they submitted this week.
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The University of Memphis recently announced that its football players will wear helmets with a Black Lives Matter sticker for every game during the upcoming season.
“This season, for every game, our student-athletes’ helmets will have a BLM sticker,” Ryan Silverfield, head coach of the school’s football team, wrote on Twitter.
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Joe Carr, a conservative leader in Rutherford County, on Thursday endorsed Dr. Manny Sethi in his U.S. Senate race and said he will host the physician as well as U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) at a cookout on July 18.
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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. – host Leahy welcomed Tennessee Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson to the studio.
At the end of the third hour, Leahy and Johnson answered calls from concerned parents about Governor Lee’s state of emergency extension that will last until August 29 and touched upon the potentiality of spreading COVID-19 through elementary and high school students.
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The Tennessee Supreme Court announced on Thursday it was canceling the July 28-29 administration of the Uniform Bar Examination.
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The Metro Nashville Police Department announced a “significant arrest” Wednesday night in connection to the May 30 riots outside the Metro Courthouse.
According to a press release, authorities have arrested 33-year-old Ryan Keith Ray on eight criminal charges. Ray has been charged with inciting a riot, arson, two counts of burglary, and four counts of felony vandalism.
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Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN-09) wants to open up another impeachment inquiry, this time of U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr.
After calling for Barr’s impeachment last week, Cohen formally introduced a resolution Tuesday that would authorize an impeachment inquiry into Barr’s conduct.
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Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) led a bipartisan group of lawmakers in urging member states of the European Union to designate Hezbollah a terrorist organization.
Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) along with Reps. Lee Zeldin (R-NY-01) and Ted Deutch (D-FL-22) joined Blackburn in drafting the letter to EU member states. A total of 30 lawmakers signed their names to the letter.
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U.S. Rep. Mark Green (R-TN-07) recently introduced a bill to require annual reporting on federal funds spent in China.
The bill, called the Our Money in China Transparency Act, would require detailed annual reporting on any federal funds spent on activities conducted in collaboration with China’s entities and institutions, Green explained in a press release.
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The federal government will distribute $1 million of taxpayer money to cater to Tennesseans’ mental health needs as they pertain to COVID-19.
This, according to a press release the Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services put out this week.
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Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN-09) called for the impeachment of U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr during a House Judiciary Committee hearing last week.
In a statement released before the hearing, Cohen claimed the Department of Justice “has clearly been corrupted” under Barr’s leadership. He pointed to the recent removal of Geoffrey Berman, former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, and the Justice Department’s request to dismiss its criminal case against Michael Flynn as evidence of corruption.
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Members of the Tennessee chapter of Planned Parenthood gathered at an unspecified location this week and posted a Twitter video of themselves incinerating an American flag.
Those same Planned Parenthood members then placed the burning flag into a garbage container before someone extinguished the flames with a fire extinguisher.
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Thales Academy, a college preparatory network of Pre-K-12 independent schools, announced that it will hold a grand opening for its new Franklin campus on July 20.
The grand opening will mark the first day of the school’s year-round calendar for the 2020-2021 academic year, Thales Academy said in a press release.
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An 18-year-old from Heiskell, Tennessee was charged Monday with inciting a riot and civil disorder for his involvement in a May 30 riot in downtown Knoxville.
According to WVLT, a group of 50 to 100 people gathered in Market Square around 11:30 p.m. on May 30 to commit acts of vandalism as unrest spread across the nation in response to the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
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Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) said Google and its parent company, Alphabet, pose a “threat to a free and fair press in America” in a letter sent Sunday to U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr.
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Tennessee was immediately sued by a cohort of liberal organizations Friday after the General Assembly passed its pro-life heartbeat bill.
The bill passed the Tennessee House in a vote of 69-17 and was then approved by the Tennessee Senate 23-5.
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Gov. Bill Lee is thinking about calling the Legislature in for a special session to pass a bill to provide retroactive COVID-19 legal protection for businesses, the Chattanooga Times Free Press said.
The General Assembly ended their session on Friday without the House passing the Tennessee Recovery and Safe Harbor Act. It received 46 of 50 votes needed. House Majority Leader William Lamberth (R-Portland) questioned whether the measure was legal under Tennessee’s Constitution regarding the impairment of contracts. (The Senate had approved the bill.)
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Neil McCabe, the national correspondent for The Tennessee Star and Star News network, was interviewed by Politico last week for a front-page story on the nation’s division.
The article focused on Seattle’s Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, called CHAZ for short, which Politico described as a “microcosm of the culture wars.” The CHAZ was established by protesters earlier this month after law enforcement officers withdrew from the scene.
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Gov. Bill Lee announced a new “TN Strong Mask Movement” Thursday with the goal of making face masks more “fun.”
According to a press release from the governor’s office, the Economic Recovery Group developed the new program along with more than 30 “flagship brands” across the state, including Amazon, Bridgestone, Bristol Motor Speedway, Graceland, Jack Daniel’s, several professional sports teams and universities, and many others.
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Major pro-life legislation was approved by the Tennessee Legislature in Friday’s early morning hours just before legislators wrapped up their year.
Passage — and the end of the session — came as a surprise because Senate leaders had said they would not take the abortion measure up in this condensed year, according to a story by The Tennessee Journal: On the Hill. The publication also reported the Senate did this to persuade the House to back off of making changes to the budget proposal the Senate had approved.
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Mayor John Cooper said this week that he has asked the Metro Nashville Police Department to strengthen its policies to “explicitly prohibit the use of chokeholds and to further clarify officers’ duty to intervene.”
However, as the statement from Cooper’s office notes, chokeholds are already prohibited under Tennessee law in most circumstances. Additionally, since the Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) doesn’t train officers on the technique, chokeholds are “not allowed per Nashville police policy and have not been allowed for decades,” said the statement.
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The University of Memphis in partnership with Shelby County Schools recently announced the creation of a George Floyd Memorial Scholarship.
According to a press release, the goal of the scholarship is to provide support to “as many African American Male Academy members as possible.”
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An illegal alien who evaded capture for nearly three years was sentenced to 60 months in federal prison last week for possession of cocaine with intent to distribute and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime.
According to a Monday statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Tennessee, a federal jury in February found Carlos Landeros-Salcedo guilty after a three-day trial and just 40 minutes of deliberation among the jurors. U.S. District Court Judge Sheryl H. Lipman sentenced him to 60 months in federal prison on June 10.
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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 the original all-star panelist, Crom Carmichael in the studio. During the third hour, Leahy and…
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As of Sunday night Tennessee had 30,432 COVID-19 cases and 475 deaths.
The COVID Tracking Project reported the latest numbers on their website Sunday night. The website also reported that COVID-19 had hospitalized 2,087 Tennesseans and taken the lives of 475 state residents.
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Law enforcement officers were able to prevent demonstrators from camping out in Legislative Plaza for a second night Saturday.
Gov. Bill Lee failed to enforce state law Friday night and allowed left-wing protesters to occupy the plaza throughout the night and into Saturday morning, The Tennessee Star reported. More than 100 protesters claimed Friday that they had taken control of Nashville’s Legislative Plaza and refused to leave until speaking with Lee.
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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. – Leahy was joined on the newsmakers line by Tennessee Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dr. Manny Sethi.
During the third hour, Sethi discussed his priorities in the wake of COVID and the death of George Floyd. He disagreed with defunding the police and advocated to bring supply chains back to America. He added that in order to defeat Democrats, Republicans need to challenge them at the local level.
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A fifth former correctional officer pleaded guilty this week to using unlawful force on an inmate and then conspiring to cover it up while working as an officer for the Tennessee Department of Correction.
Jonathan York, 33, faces up to 10 years in prison for the civil rights offense of using unlawful force and up to five years for the conspiracy offense.
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The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Tennessee called on Metro Police Chief Steve Anderson to resign in a statement released Wednesday.
“Over the last ten days, tens of thousands of Nashvillians have stood together in peaceful protests to express their outrage over the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. These powerful protests highlight the outrage over the enduring and deep-rooted problem of racist policing and structural racism in the United States,” the group said in its statement.
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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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Tennessee officials have charged two women in separate cases, one from Fayette County and another from Mississippi, with TennCare fraud.
Authorities charged Shuvonda Barnett, 36, of Rossville, with 48 counts of TennCare fraud and two counts of theft of services over $10,000 but under $60,000, according to a Tennessee Department of Finance and Administration press release.
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Thales Academy, a college preparatory network of independent Pre-K-12 schools, will be hosting a parent interest meeting Tuesday night regarding its new campus in Franklin, Tennessee.
The informational meeting is scheduled for June 9 at 6:30 p.m. at The Gate Community Church, the address of which is: 3835 Carothers Parkway, Franklin, TN 37067. Thales Academy is a secular school and is not affiliated with The Gate Church.
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Attorney General Herbert H. Slatery III, along with the State Attorneys General Robocall Working Group, wants the FCC to continue to collaborate with state attorneys general and telecom companies to trace illegal robocalls to their source.
Slatery announced this in a press release this week.
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About 1,000 citizen-soldiers with the Tennessee National Guard were deployed to the nation’s capital this week to help keep the peace outside the White House.
Like many major cities, Washington has seen massive demonstrations in response to the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who was allegedly murdered by Minneapolis police. Many of the protests have taken a violent turn as Washington braced for what was expected to be its largest protest yet Saturday night.
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Tennessee must give all of its 4.1 million registered voters the option to cast ballots by mail during the coronavirus pandemic, a judge ruled Thursday.
Davidson County Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle ruled that the state’s limits on absentee voting during the pandemic constitute “an unreasonable burden on the fundamental right to vote guaranteed by the Tennessee Constitution.” The judge wrote that any eligible voter can get an absentee ballot to avoid contracting or passing on COVID-19 in the “upcoming elections during the pendency of pandemic circumstances.”
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Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee on Thursday outlined new spending plans for state government that reflect significant revenue reductions due to the economic impact of COVID-19.
Department of Finance and Administration Commissioner Butch Eley presented state lawmakers with the revised budget plans for the current fiscal year, as well as FY 2020-21, which begins July 1, 2020, and a framework for the following fiscal year, 2021-22.
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Tennessee’s highest court declined Thursday to take up an appeal of a lawsuit challenging the legality of a school voucher program that would let parents use public tax dollars for private school tuition.
Voucher supporters had hoped the Tennessee Supreme Court would reach down and take up the case after an appellate court set an Aug. 5 hearing to review the case.
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A Tennessee man was charged Wednesday with malicious destruction of property using fire or explosives for his involvement in Saturday’s riots outside the Nashville City Hall.
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Gov. Bill Lee confirmed Tuesday afternoon that GOP leaders are considering Nashville as an alternative site for August’s Republican National Convention just hours before President Donald Trump announced that he will be pulling the convention from North Carolina.
Lee’s office told WTVF that officials with the Republican National Committee will be visiting Nashville Thursday to tour the city.
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Instagram reportedly believes a children’s book written by U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and her daughter, about the history of the 19th Amendment, may “influence the outcome of an election,” so the tech giant has banned advertising for it.
The Federalist reported on the book’s ban.
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Officials with the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development released statistics Thursday showing what they call “a staggering increase in unemployment for each of Tennessee’s 95 counties” in April. This, as many businesses closed to help slow the spread of COVID-19, according to a TDLWD press release.
“The unprecedented and historic spike in unemployment impacted some counties more drastically than others, but no area of Tennessee escaped the pandemic’s effect on the state’s workforce,” the press release said.
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Because of the lingering effects of COVID-19, Tennessee Commissioner of Finance and Administration Butch Eley this week asked all of the state’s agency heads and budget officers to plan to reduce their budgets by 12 percent.
This, according to an email Eley sent Tuesday to state officials.
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The Metro Public Health Department in Nashville will still provide COVID-19 patient information to first responders and law enforcement.
Metro Public Health Director Michael Caldwell said the practice is “temporary,” but that it’s working, WPLN reported Thursday.
“This is an emergency,” he says. “This is critical, timely, life-saving information that has reduced and contained the spread of this disease within our medical institutions and within our jails. I’m puzzled by why the state reversed course.”
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Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) introduced a bill Friday that she says would help prevent authoritarian governments in Russia and China from restricting “Internet freedom.”
“Leading censors like China and Russia are not only employing more sophisticated means to control the lives of their citizens online; they are also exporting their censorship and surveillance tactics to illiberal regimes abroad,” Blackburn said in a press release.
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