Kamala Harris Receives Endorsements from Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell, Disgraced Ex-Mayor Megan Barry

Freddy O'Connell, Megan Berry, Kamala Harris (composite image)

Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday received the endorsement of both Nashville’s current mayor, Freddie O’Connell, as well as former Mayor Megan Barry, who resigned in 2018 after it was revealed she used public funds and resources to facilitate an affair with her bodyguard.

The endorsements came after President Joe Biden on Sunday confirmed he will no longer see the Democratic Party’s nomination, then later endorsed Harris to lead the Democrats against former President Donald Trump in November.

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Republican Mayor of Knox County Blasts Media for Calling Concerns Over Biden’s Decline ‘Conspiracy Theories’

Knox Mayor Glenn Jacobs

Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs (R) joined Sky News Monday where he blasted the media for referring to Republicans as “conspiracy theorists” for questioning President Joe Biden’s mental acuity. 

“What did Kamala Harris know [and] when did she know it, and who is actually president of the United States and who is making those decisions,” Jacobs said on “News Hour with Mark Austin.” “The thing about the vice president’s job, one of their primary duties is if something happens to the president, the vice president has to step in, yet Mrs. Harris said she didn’t know there was anything wrong with the president. However, a month ago, right after the debate with President Trump, she said on TV that everything was fine, that he was thinking clearly, [and] that he was giving good advice to leaders around the world. So, she either knew and is basically covering that up, or she is willingly ignorant of the situation. Either way, that’s a bad place to be.” 

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Rep. Andy Ogles Calls Pro-Courtney Johnston Mailers Featuring President Trump ‘Disgraceful and Despicable’

Andy Ogles and Courtney Johnston in front on misleading Johnston mailer (composite image)

Despite Representative Andy Ogles (R-TN-05) already securing the endorsement of former President Donald Trump in his bid for reelection in Tennessee’s 5th Congressional district, political advertisements mailed to voters depict his only Republican challenger, Metro Councilwoman Courtney Johnston, alongside Republican presidential nominee.

The mailers do not appear to be sent by Johnston’s campaign, but are attributed to Conservatives with Character, the super PAC that recently began an advertising campaign against Ogles, and were obtained by The Tennessee Star from a recipient within the district.

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Oversight Hearing: Cheatle Says July 13 Was the ‘Most Significant Operational Failure of the Secret Service in Decades’

Kimberly Cheatle

U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle is testifying before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee about the security failures that led to the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump’s life.

On July 13, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks attempted to assassinate Trump during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Several bullets passed within millimeters of Trumps head, at least one grazing his ear. Two rallygoers were hurt, and Corey Comperatore, a former fire chief, was tragically killed by stray bullets while shielding his wife and daughter.

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Authorities Rescue Three Children in Tennessee, Arrest Foreign National Wanted for ‘Child Stealing’ in Bahamas

ICE arrest

The International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) of Washington announced on Friday the rescue of three children and the arrest of a foreign national in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.

INTERPOL Washington confirmed in a press release that the agency participated in a joint operation with the U.S. Marshals Service and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on July 5 to arrest Angelo McQueen, a citizen of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas who the intergovernmental agency explained was wanted “for sexual offenses against a minor.”

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Bill and Hillary Clinton Endorse Kamala Harris for the Democrat Nomination for President in 2024

Kamala Harris

Former President Bill Clinton and his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for the 2024 Democrat Party nomination for President.

In a statement posted to X, formerly Twitter, at 2:10 pm CT on Sunday, the Clintons said “Now is the time to support Kamala Harris and fight with everything we’ve got to elect her.”

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Federal Grand Jury Indicts Nashville Man Accused of Shooting 18-Year-Old at WeGo Bus Station

Kenneth Johnson

A federal grand jury indicted a Nashville man accused of shooting an 18-year-old six times on the steps of a WeGo bus station in May, according to the Middle District of Tennessee U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Kenneth Johnson, 31, was arrested by Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) officers on May 16 after he allegedly shot the 18-year-old six times at the WeGo bus station located at the intersection of Rep John Lewis Way & MLK Jr Blvd.

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Murfreesboro Man Accused of Easter Sunday Shooting at Nashville Restaurant Indicted by Federal Grand Jury

Anton Rucker

A federal grand jury indicted a Murfreesboro man accused of opening fire inside a restaurant in the Salemtown neighborhood of Nashville on Easter Sunday, according to the Middle District of Tennessee U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Anton Rucker, 47, was arrested in Princeton, Kentucky by TITANS (The Investigative Team Addressing Neighborhood Shootings) detectives with the Metro Nashville Police Department two days following the Easter Sunday shooting which killed one – a 33-year old man named Allen Beachem – and injured multiple others.

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TN-08 Democratic Primary Candidate Stands by Violent Rhetoric Against Trump, Republicans

Sarah Freeman

In the days after the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, Commercial Appeal published candidate profiles on the three Democratic primary challengers to Representative David Kustoff (R-TN-8), two of whom took the deeply divisive tone that Republicans were to “end democracy.”

As reported by The Tennessee Star, one of those candidates, Leonard Franklin, doubled down on his dark rhetoric in an exchange with The Star. 

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Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Allows Arizona’s New Law Requiring Proof of Citizenship to Vote in State and Local Elections to Remain in Place

early voting

A Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel of three justices issued an order on Thursday allowing part of Arizona’s new law that requires proof of citizenship in order to vote in state and local elections to remain in effect during appeals litigation. However, the panel upheld the trial court’s decision blocking some of the law. Consequently, those who request an application to vote only in federal elections will not be required to show proof of citizenship. This could have a substantial effect on the presidential race and highly contentious races like Kari Lake’s U.S. Senate race.

State Senate President Warren Petersen and the Senate Republicans, who were intervenors in the case, issued a statement on X. “This is a victory for election integrity in Arizona,” Petersen said. “Only U.S. citizens should be allowed to vote in our elections. It sounds like common sense, but the radical left elected officials in our state continue to reject this notion, disrespecting the voices of our lawful Arizona voters. We are grateful the court is upholding this provision in our law, and it’s time for Congress to take action to ensure only lawful U.S. citizens are voting in federal races.” 

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Tennessee Returns $68 Million in Unclaimed Property to Residents

Tennessee State Capitol building

The Tennessee Department of Treasury (TDOT) said Wednesday that it returned more than $68 million in unclaimed property to Tennesseans in Fiscal Year 2023, a record for the state department. 

“Unclaimed property is money that has been turned over to the State by businesses and organizations unable to locate the rightful owners, such as utility refunds, uncashed paychecks, credit balances for overpayments, rental deposit refunds, gift certificates, securities, and abandoned bank accounts,” the department explained. “The Unclaimed Property program is a consumer protection program of the Department of Treasury that works to reunite this missing money with its rightful owner.”

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Tennessee Lottery Raises More than $519 Million for Education in Fiscal Year 2024

The Tennessee Education Lottery Corporation announced Tuesday that it raised $519,322,000 for education in the Volunteer State during Fiscal Year 2024 (FY24), setting a new Fiscal Year record for the amount generated for education.

FY23, which spanned from July 1, 2023, through June 30, 2024, surpassed Fiscal Year 2023’s proceeds – the previous fiscal year record – by more than $4 million.

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Metro Council Member Who Blocked Resolution Condemning Assassination Attempt of Trump said Former President ‘Called’ for the Shooting

Ginny Welsch

Metro Nashville Council Member Ginny Welsch (District 16) said former President Donald Trump “called for” the July 13 assassination attempt he survived during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Trump was grazed by a single bullet in his upper right ear in what is formally being investigated as a failed assassination attempt during the rally last week.

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Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell Declares Transit Referendum ‘Great Opportunity’ After Council Approves November Vote

Nashville Mayor Freddie O'Connell

Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell on Wednesday declared his controversial transit referendum a “great opportunity” for the city after it was unanimously approved by the Metro Council, with every lawmaker present voting to allow Nashvillians to vote in November on whether to fund the $6.93 billion transportation package called illegal by critics. 

After the transit referendum was approved by the Metro Nashville City Council with unanimous support from the lawmakers present, O’Connell declared his approval in a statement, noting the final decision will go to Nashville residents in November.

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Attorney General Skrmetti Files Motion to Dismiss Lawsuit on Abortion Trafficking

Tennessee’s Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti Wednesday filed a motion to dismiss a lawsuit by State Representative Aftyn Behn (D-Nashville), Nashville abortion activist and attorney Rachel Welty, and others to stop a bill banning the practice of abortion trafficking to take effect. 

HB 1895, introduced by State Representative Jason Zachary (R-Knoxville) and signed into law by Gov. Bill Lee (R) in May bans  minor seeking a abortions to be transported across state lines by people unrelated to them in order to obtain an abortion.

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Tennessee Election Official Confirms Voters Who Ignored Citizen Verification Letter Will Not Be Removed from Rolls

Mark Goins

Tennessee Coordinator of Elections Mark Goins confirmed on Wednesday that none of the 14,375 voters who received letters from his office seeking to confirm their citizenship status will be removed from the state’s voter rolls.

Goins confirmed in a Tuesday statement to The Associated Press that his office’s June 13 letter to voters, which requested information about their citizenship, “did not threaten to remove a person from the voter list if a person does not respond” and then confirmed to the outlet, “[n]o one will be removed from a voting list for not responding to the June 13 letter.”

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Sen. Blackburn Confronts Stonewalling Secret Service Director at the RNC over Trump Assassination Attempt Coverup

Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and John Barrasso (R-WY) on Wednesday confronted U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle on the floor of the Republican National Convention (RNC) over the Secret Service actions that preceded the Saturday assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.

The Tennessee Star confirmed the confrontation happened at the Fiserv Forum in Mulwaukee, Wisconsin where the RNC is being held. Blackburn and Barrasso confronted Cheatle upstairs in a luxury suite just prior to 9 p.m., just minutes before Blackburn uploaded video to the social media platform X with the caption, “[t]he American people deserve answers from the Secret Service.”

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U.S. Senators Prohibited from Asking Questions in Secret Service Conference Call After Attempted Trump Assassination

Senators and Secret Service

A source familiar with the conversation confirmed to The Tennessee Star that multiple members of the U.S. Senate were prohibited from asking questions during a Wednesday conference call with the U.S. Secret Service in the wake of the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump.

The allegation surfaced after U.S. Senator Mike Lee revealed the Secret Service was “briefing senators” about the attempted assassination “on a conference call,” during which he claimed the federal agency provided “details that aren’t all helpful” and little information about “the failures that led to this tragedy.”

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Democrat Primary Candidates in TN-08 Continue with Violent Rhetoric After Trump Assassination Attempt

Perkins and Freeman

Just after the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, Commercial Appeal published candidate profiles on the three Democratic primary challengers to Rep. David Kustoff (R-TN-8), two of whom took the deeply divisive tone that Republicans was to “end democracy.” 

Sarah Freeman is running to be her party’s nominee in the race. 

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Biden’s Secret Service ‘Created the Conditions’ for Trump Assassination Attempt and Truth Must Be ‘Devastating,’ Argues The Federalist Co-Founder

The U.S. Secret Service last Saturday “created the conditions” for 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks to climb onto the roof of a building and take aim at former President Donald Trump at his Butler, Pennsylvania rally “deliberately and with malice aforethought,” argued The Federalist co-founder Sean Davis, who led a series of criticisms against the agency on Tuesday.

Davis wrote in a Tuesday post to the social media platform X that the “security regime” created by President Joe Biden “deliberately and with malice aforethought created the conditions that led to an assassin shooting Donald Trump in the head.”

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Middle Tennessee State University Earns ‘Green Light’ FIRE Rating for Respecting Free Speech

Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) last week earned a “green light” rating from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Freedom (FIRE), a nonprofit organization that gained fame by defending freedom of speech on college campuses.

A FIRE press release confirms MTSU became the latest university to receive the rating, with the organization noting just 68 other institutions throughout the country have qualified for the “green light” rating it explains” is reserved for institutions with no written policies that seriously imperil student free speech rights.”

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Incumbent U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn Trounces Democrat Challenger Gloria Johnson in Fundraising Battle with over $7.1 Million More Cash on Hand: FEC Data

Marsha Blackburn and Gloria Johnson

Data recently published by the Federal Election Commission (FEC) shows Tennessee incumbent U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) sitting on more than $7.1 million cash on hand than her leading Democratic challenger, Tennessee State Representative Gloria Johnson (D-Knoxville).

Blackburn’s cash on hand as of June 30 is reported to be $9,227,961.41 while Johnson’s reported amount is $2,050,627.43 – a total difference of $7,177,333.98.

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FBI Says It Has No Record of ‘Legacy Token’ Documents After FOIA Request

In response the a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) says it has no record of any documents containing the terms “legacy token” or “legacy tokens,” despite the fact that The Tennessee Star has such a document from the FBI in its possession. 

“Based on the information you provided, we conducted a main entity record search of the Central Records System (CRS) per our standard search policy,” the FBI said in response to the FOIA request. “However, we were unable to identify records subject to the FOIPA that are responsive to your request. Therefore, your request is being closed. If you have additional information pertaining to the subject of your request, please submit a new request providing the details, and we will conduct an additional search.”

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U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn Joins Push for Senate Judiciary Committee to Hold Hearing on Assassination Attempt of Former President Donald Trump

Sen. Marsha Blackburn

Tennessee U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) was among the Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans who sent a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-IL) requesting that he organize a committee hearing on the circumstances leading up to the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump over the weekend.

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Elon Musk Endorses Trump After Assassination Attempt, Leads Flood of Calls for Secret Service Resignations

Elon Musk, Donald Trump

Billionaire Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and owner of the social media platform X, endorsed former President Donald Trump on Saturday after a gunman attempted to assassinate the former president during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Musk later called for Secret Service resignations in the wake of the shooting, which left one rally attendee dead and a second injured.

Musk posted a video of the attempted assassination in to X, where he received more than 55 million views at press time, and wrote, “I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery.”

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Federal Court Upholds Tennessee Policy Preventing Transgender Individuals from Changing Sex on Birth Certificate

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled 2-1 to uphold a decades-long Tennessee policy that prohibits changes to a person’s sex on their birth certificate to reflect their gender identity instead of their biological sex at birth.

The policy treats the sex listed on a birth certificate as a historical fact unchangeable by an individual’s transition to a different gender identity.

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Reporter Tom Pappert: Vanderbilt University Medical Center May Have Made Financial Arrangements to Avoid Revelations About Its Connection to Audrey Hale

Tom Pappert

Tom Pappert, lead reporter at The Tennessee Star, said he believes attorneys for Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) may have reached a financial arrangement with multiple entities involved in the Covenant School killer case in order to “protect” the medical institution’s reputation amid shocking revelations connecting VUMC to the killer, Audrey Elizabeth Hale.

On June 7, The Star was the first to report that Hale was a 22-year patient of VUMC from 2001 until the time of the horrific school shooting on March 27, 2023.

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