Tom Pappert, reporter for The Georgia Star News and lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, said the conduct of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, specifically amid the aftermath of her decision to appoint her former lover, Nathan Wade, as the special prosecutor overseeing her case against former President Donald Trump, is a “disgrace to the legal profession.”
Read the full story
Tuesday afternoon on the Matt Murphy Show, broadcast weekdays from noon to 3 p.m. on SuperTalk 99.7 WTN, host Murphy interviewed Tori Venable, executive director of Americans for Prosperity-Tennessee, about AFP’s support for Governor Bill Lee’s universal school choice bill currently under consideration in The Tennessee General Assembly. During the interview, Venable criticized the reporting of Phil Williams in Monday evening’s broadcast on NewsChannel 5, which featured an interview with State Representative Todd Warner (R-Chapel Hill), as well as a recording of a phone call between Williams and Venable that was obtained without Venable’s consent.
Read the full story
A bill that would allow Tennessee’s Department of Tourism to hide negotiated contracts for a potential Super Bowl and other events for up to 10 years was amended and passed the Tennessee Senate.
This means the legislation will go back to the House for approval before it can be sent to Gov. Bill Lee for approval.
Read the full story
Americans for Prosperity – Tennessee (AFP-TN) State Director Tori Venable responded to News Channel 5’s investigative segment on Monday accusing the conservative political advocacy group of threatening Tennessee state lawmakers to advance Governor Bill Lee’s universal school choice bill.
Read the full story
A container ship slammed into a Baltimore bridge early Tuesday, causing it to collapse and send vehicles and road crew members into a river in what authorities declared “a dire emergency.”
The incident occurred at about 1:30 a.m. on the Francis Scott Key Bridge, prompting an emergency search-and-rescue operation in the frigid waters of the Patapsco River.
Read the full story
A U.S. District Court judge ruled on Monday that the Mexican government can proceed with a lawsuit alleging that five Arizona gun dealers were involved in trafficking weapons and ammunition to drug cartels across the U.S.-Mexico border.
Read the full story
Tennessee U.S. Representative Andy Ogles (R-TN-05) recently picked up endorsements from four of his colleagues serving the Volunteer State in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Read the full story
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (T-TN) Monday announced on her X account that she will be traveling to Eagle Pass, TX this week to survey what has become ground zero for illegal alien border crossings.
Blackburn said in a statement from her office:
Read the full story
Vanderbilt University announced Monday it is establishing a new college dedicated to computer science, artificial intelligence (AI), data science, and related fields.
Read the full story
The Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) will halt interstate construction beginning Thursday as travelers head to their Easter destinations.
“TDOT crews and contractors will stop all road construction work that requires lane closures beginning Thursday, March 28, at 6:00 p.m. through Monday, April 1 at 6:00 a.m.,” a release from the department says. “This will provide maximum roadway capacity to motorists expected to travel across the state this upcoming holiday weekend.”
Read the full story
As crime continues to plague the cities of Nashville and Memphis, Tennessee’s U.S. Attorneys have deemphasized prosecuting those who violate our criminal laws. In the first year of office for President Biden’s U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee, criminal case filings declined by over 25 percent compared to the previous year.
Read the full story
Corey DeAngelis, a school choice activist and senior fellow at the American Federation for Children, said it’s time for Tennessee State Representative Todd Warner (R-Chapel Hill) to be voted out of office amid his anti-school choice stunts, including his recent work with News Channel 5’s Phil Williams.
Read the full story
Tennessee Never Trump political operators Blake Harris and Kim Kaegi are pushing Metro Nashville Councilwoman Courtney Johnston to challenge Representative Andy Ogles (R-TN-05) for his seat in the U.S. House, multiple sources familiar with the Metro Council and Tennessee Republican politics confirmed to The Tennessee Star.
Johnston recently confirmed reports she is considering a challenge to Ogles, stating to the media, “The people of Middle Tennessee deserve better than Andy Ogles.” The councilwoman confirmed, “I am taking a very close look at the district and am talking to voters. If I run, I intend to win.”
Read the full story
Tennessee U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) is calling on Senate leadership to take “immediate action” on a bill that would force ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of TikTok, to divest within six months or face being banned in the U.S.
Read the full story
Tennessee U.S. Representative Tim Burchett (R-TN-02) said the Department of Justice’s new National Extreme Risk Protection Order (ERPO) Resource Center in an “unauthorized attack” on the Second Amendment.
Read the full story
The U.S. Senate failed to pass an amendment introduced by U.S. Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) on Saturday that would stop taxpayer dollars from funding charter flights being used to secretly fly illegal aliens from other nations directly into states across the country for resettlement.
Read the full story
A former Franklin youth soccer coach has been indicted on child sex crimes and immigration crimes, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ).
“The indictment, returned yesterday by a federal grand jury, charges Camilo Campos-Hurtado, 63, with four counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, one count of receiving visual depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct, one count of using or possessing fraudulent immigration documents, and one count of possessing an identification document or authentication feature which was stolen or produced without lawful authority,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Tennessee said in a March 21 press release.
Read the full story
Nolensville Police Lieutenant Stephen Hale recently graduated from the 289th session of the FBI National Academy, marking the first time in Nolensville Police Department history that an officer has completed the program.
Read the full story
Bridgetown Natural Foods is receiving $1.3 million through incenctives for its $78.3 million manufacturing and distribution facility in Tennessee.
The project in Lebanon is being awarded a FastTrack Job Training Assistance Grant that was not disclosed Wednesday and was first listed without a project name by the State Funding Board.
Read the full story
Former President Donald Trump said on Friday that while he does have almost half a billion dollars in cash, he doesn’t want to spend it on the recent $454 million New York civil fraud judgment.
Read the full story
Peter Schweizer, author of Blood Money: Why the Powerful Turn a Blind Eye While China Kills Americans, said a majority of U.S. leaders are silent on China’s role in inciting American issues due to their personal, financial entanglement with the foreign nation.
Schweizer said his book focuses on a multitude of American issues – including crime and drugs – and details the “overwhelming evidence” connecting China to such issues.
Read the full story
Nashville Tea Party founder Ben Cunningham warned that the half-cent sales tax increase being considered to fund Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s transit reform plan will be “just a small down payment” from Nashvillians.
Cunningham posted to X, formerly Twitter, in response to a piece by Tennessean reporter Cassandra Stephenson.
Read the full story
Todd Bensman, senior national security fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, said the mainstream media’s refusal to acknowledge how the Biden administration’s compliance in scuttling Haiti’s elections back in 2021 contributes to the chaos currently unfolding in the Caribbean country stems from the fact that the backstory is a “terrible” look for President Joe Biden.
Read the full story
U.S. Representative Andy Ogles (R-TN-05) slammed the passage of a “minibus” $1.2 trillion spending bill on Friday that would fund six of the 12 appropriations divisions for Fiscal Year 2024.
Moments before the House passed the bill by a 286-134 vote, Ogles, along with other members of the Freedom Caucus, held a press conference where he said the American people had been “sold out.”
Read the full story
The executive director of the Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport died Thursday after a shootout with federal agents who were investigating the potentially illegal sale of firearms.
Agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) attempted to serve a warrant at the Little Rock home of Bryan Malinowski, 53, at 6:00 a.m. on Tuesday, ATF and Arkansas State Police told NBC. Malinowski’s family has sought legal counsel and claims the ATF’s actions were not justified.
Read the full story
According to report from the Federation on American Immigration Reform (FAIR), the President Joe Biden’s administration paroled more illegal aliens into the United States during the first nine months of Fiscal Year 2023 than it accepted legal immigrants through visa programs.
Parole for illegal aliens entails a government acknowledgement that a person is present in the country illegally, but that they have permission to stay here for various reasons.
Read the full story
Jeremy Boreing, co-founder of The Daily Wire, announced Friday morning that the media publication has cut ties with one of its contributors, Candace Owens.
Read the full story
The body of Riley Strain, the 22-year old college student who had gone missing after being asked to leave Luke Bryan’s bar on the night of March 8, has been recovered in the Cumberland River in West Nashville, approximately 8 miles from downtown.
Read the full story
Tennessee has joined a multi-state antitrust lawsuit against Apple, which claims that the Silicon Valley company is monopolizing the smartphone market.
“Apple, the most valuable company in the world, stifled competition in the smartphone market at the expense of consumers,” said Tennessee Attorney General Skrmetti in a press release. “When companies win by innovating, consumers benefit. When companies win by kneecapping their competition, consumers suffer.”
Read the full story
The Tennessee Comptroller’s Office announced on Thursday that it resolved a number of “mistakes” made by Shelby County Clerk Wanda Halbert just three weeks after beginning an audit.
In February, Tennessee Comptroller Jason Mumpower announced a “deep concern and lack of confidence” in Halbert’s office after she failed to submit regular revenue reports for the county, and said auditors with his office would seek to remedy the failures allegedly caused by “incompetence and willful neglect” by Halbert.
Read the full story
Volkswagen employees at a plant in Chattanooga have filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to hold a vote on whether workers will join the United Auto Workers (UAW) union.
“The milestone marks the first non-union auto plant to file for a union election among the dozens of auto plants where workers have been organizing in recent months,” UAW said in a press release. “The grassroots effort sprang up in the wake of the record victories for Big Three autoworkers in the UAW’s historic Stand Up Strike win.”
Read the full story
The Tennessee Senate passed a bill that would end a franchise tax on business property in the state along with refunding as much as $1.6 billion to businesses that previously paid the tax.
Senate Bill 2103 passed with a 25-6 vote in the Senate and companion House Bill 1893 is set to be heard onWednesday in the House Finance, Ways and Means Subcommittee.
Read the full story
Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti has joined a coalition of 22 state attorneys general in filing an amicus brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in support of Texas’s illegal alien removal law, SB4, being challenged in the case United States v. Texas.
Read the full story
Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell attended a Monday evening meeting with the city’s leading business leaders and lobbyists in a bid to secure their support for his mass transit referendum scheduled for November.
The meeting between O’Connell and Nashville community leaders took place at the offices of Ingraham Industries Inc., according to the Nashville Business Journal, which reported the mayor met with many of the groups and individuals who backed the failed transit plan pitched by disgraced Mayor Megan Barry in 2018.
Read the full story
Metro Nashville Council Member Jeff Eslick explained how one aspect of Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s transit plan, which will be on the November ballot, would help control the flow of traffic for drivers in Music City.
Read the full story
Sheila Matthews, co-founder of the national non-profit parent organization AbleChild, and activist Amy Miller with the Reform Pharma initiative of Children’s Health Defense, detailed the progress a bill that would help determine the link between Big Pharma drugs and mass shooters has made in the Tennessee General Assembly since its introduction.
Read the full story
Kyle Rittenhouse’s speech at the University of Memphis began with confusion and continued with disruption.
The university made a last-minute change to ticketing, causing confusion for people who had signed up days prior. Though Rittenhouse ultimately delivered his speech, it included a walkout and harassment of Turning Point USA members after the event.
Read the full story
An infamous Tennessee doctor who exchanged prescription opiates for sex and money will serve 20 years in federal prison, according to a release by the Department of Justice (DOJ).
Jeffrey Young Jr. of Jackson, who was known as the “Rock Doc,” will begin serving his time immediately.
Read the full story
A bill in the Tennessee House of Representatives would trigger harsher penalties for violent crimes if the person convicted of those crimes is an illegal alien.
HB 1872 “authorizes the enhancement of criminal penalties up to life in prison without parole upon conviction of violent crimes by illegal aliens; conviction of possession of a firearm or deadly weapon by an illegal alien; or conviction of a violent crime on the property of a school by any person.”
Read the full story
Tennessee lawmakers are poised to pass legislation instituting harsher penalties for those caught providing transportation to illegal immigrants in the state, but first plan to introduce amendments protecting “good Samaritans” and professional drivers from unknowingly violating the law.
The Senate Judiciary Committee considered SB 2802, which would impose a $5,000 fine for individuals caught transporting illegal immigrants in the state on Wednesday, when Senator Joey Hensley (R-Hohenwald) introduced an amendment to his bill he said closed existing loopholes within the law.
Read the full story
State Representative Johnny Garrett’s (R-Goodlettsville) amendment to a Tennessee bill that would have enacted a massive tax increase passed Wednesday in the Finance, Ways, and Means Subcommittee.
According to a fiscal note on the bill before it was amended, it would have increased state revenue by nearly $800 million in taxes on business enterprises.
Read the full story
Tennessee’s Department of Economic and Community Development has handed out more than $8.8 million in incentives since it last posted FastTrack incentives for February.
Those include $3.4 million to Schneider Electric in Mount Juliet and Smyrna, $2.5 million to Shoals Technologies Group in Portland, $1.6 million to Nokian Tyres in Dayton and $1.3 million to an unnamed project.
Read the full story
Tom Pappert, lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, said members of the Tennessee congressional delegation have not shown an interest in taking up J6 prisoner Ronald Colton McAbee’s case due to the level of “fear” surrounding the overall defense of J6 defendants.
Last month, McAbee was sentenced to almost six years in prison, three years of supervised release, and ordered to pay $32,165 in restitution after being convicted and pleading guilty to six felony charges and one misdemeanor charge for being present at the U.S. Capitol on January 6.
Read the full story
Mike Benz, former Trump State Department official and current executive director of the Foundation for Freedom Online, said the Supreme Court is going to have to exercise “bravery” as opposed to “wisdom” in its ruling of Murthy v. Missouri for the government censorship complex to be dismantled.
Murthy v. Missouri seeks to determine whether the government’s “challenged conduct transformed private social media companies’ content-moderation decisions into state action and violated respondents’ First Amendment rights” related to COVID-19 and the 2020 presidential election.
Read the full story
Todd Bensman, senior national security fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, said the Biden administration’s compliance in scuttling Haiti’s elections back in 2021 has resulted in the chaos currently unfolding in the Caribbean country as armed gangs have taken over.
In 2021, thousands of Haitians were deported back to Haiti from a Del Rio, Texas migrant camp allegedly in exchange for the country’s elections to be postponed at the request of unelected leader Ariel Henry, who has served as the acting Haiti Prime Minister and the acting president of Haiti since July 2021 after the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.
Read the full story
Ben Cunningham, founder of the Nashville Tea Party, said Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s transit plan, which will be on the November ballot, will inevitably lead to property tax increases.
Last month, O’Connell officially announced that his long-awaited transit plan will be on the November 5 ballot, however, he did not release any information regarding what the plan entails.
Read the full story
Joe Allen, author of Dark Aeon: Transhumanism and the War Against Humanity, said he believes the future of artificial intelligence (AI) will be “utterly miserable.”
Allen, on Tuesday’s episode of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show, explained how AI will most likely not evolve into a full-out “total doom human extinction” model nor into an “elaborate and spectacular” model that provides cures for diseases and invincible security, but instead evolve into something in between.
Read the full story
The Tennessee General Assembly on Monday passed legislation that would see families of juvenile offenders fined for repeated criminal acts and teenage thieves charged as adults, with the bills now headed to Governor Bill Lee for final approval.
The Juvenile Organized Retail Theft Act, SB 2573, mandates that punishments for organized retail theft and car break-ins resulting in the theft of more than $1,000 worth of goods must be considered a Class E felony, which carries a sentence of at least one year in prison. The bill would additionally apply to juvenile defendants who are at least 15.
Read the full story
U.S. Representatives Andy Ogles (R-TN-05), Matt Gaetz (R-FL-01), and Andy Biggs (R-AZ-05) have sent a letter to the director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons requesting that unjustly imprisoned January 6 defendant Stewart Parks be moved to the minimum security satellite camp located at the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) in Memphis.
Read the full story
A preliminary Supreme Court ruling that allowed Texas to begin enforcing a state law empowering local police to arrest and deport illegal aliens if the federal government doesn’t should inspire other states to follow suit, prominent conservatives tell Just the News.
Read the full story