Tag Archive for: Tennessee

Grandma Jailed at Gunpoint! Her Accuser? An AI Photo Match

Imagine this.

You are at home, watching your grandchildren. It is an ordinary day, quiet, routine, and familiar.

Then suddenly, a bang on your front door.

Federal marshals are standing there, guns drawn.

They tell you that you are wanted for bank fraud in North Dakota.

But you have never been to North Dakota. Not once. Not ever.

That is exactly what happened to 50-year-old grandmother Angela Lipps of Elizabethton, Tennessee. And what followed should alarm every American, because this was not just a mistake.

It was a system that never stopped.

It kept churning, burning, and charging until all that was left were the ashes of a former life.

The Arrest That Should Never Have Happened

In the summer of 2025, U.S. Marshals arrested Lipps at gunpoint while she was babysitting four young children.

She was booked into a Tennessee jail as a fugitive.

The charges were serious. Multiple counts of identity theft and fraud tied to a string of bank withdrawals in Fargo, North Dakota.

But Lipps had never even been in the state.

Not for a visit. Not for a day trip. Not even passing through.

The “evidence” that placed her there was not a witness, not fingerprints, not DNA.

It was facial recognition software.

When a “Lead” Becomes a Conclusion

Police in Fargo had been investigating fraud cases from April and May of that year. Surveillance footage showed a woman using a fake military ID to withdraw tens of thousands of dollars.

Investigators ran the footage through facial recognition. The system returned a match: Angela Lipps.

That should have been nothing more than the start of an investigation.

Instead, it was treated as irrefutable evidence of the criminal.

A detective compared Lipps’ driver’s license and social media photos to the suspect and concluded she was the same person based on facial features, body type, and hairstyle.

Those pixels became gospel. Lipps was guilty. And that conclusion led to a warrant. And that warrant brought armed federal agents to her front door.

No One Asked the Simplest Question

At any point, someone could have stopped and asked a basic question.

Was she even in North Dakota when the crimes occurred?

No one did.

Bank records later showed that while the fraud was happening in Fargo, Lipps was in Tennessee, buying cigarettes and depositing Social Security checks.

More than 1,200 miles away.

The truth was not hidden. It was never checked because police believed an AI image couldn’t possibly mis-identify someone.

108 Days and More

After her arrest, Lipps sat in a Tennessee jail for 108 days without bail. Extradited to North Dakota, she spent another two months detained, totaling nearly six months behind bars for a crime she couldn’t possibly have committed.

She was trapped in a system like a runaway locomotive.

In North Dakota, her attorney obtained the Tennessee bank records, which quickly proved what should have been obvious from the beginning.

Being more than a thousand miles away, she could not have committed the crimes.

The case collapsed into ashes, but those ashes also rained down on Angela Lipps.

Released. And Left Behind.

On Christmas Eve, Angela Lipps was finally released from a jail in Fargo.

Unfortunately, she had no money. No coat. No way home. And she was in a city she had never visited before.

Local defense attorneys helped her with a hotel room and food. A nonprofit eventually helped her return to Tennessee.

But by then, the damage was done.

After months in jail, she had lost her home, her car, and even her dog.

And according to reports, no one from the police department has apologized.

The AI Didn’t Jail Her. But Everything That Followed Did.

It would be easy to blame this on artificial intelligence.

But the deeper problem is more unsettling.

The AI made a suggestion.

Everything that followed, the identification, the warrant, the arrest, the detention, the extradition, was done by people.

At no point did the system pause long enough to verify the most basic facts.

At no point did someone say, “Let’s make sure we have the right person before we take away her freedom.”

Because if they had, they would have had to ask what it would cost to be wrong. Her home? Her car? Her dog? Her life as she knew it?

This Has Happened Before

Angela Lipps is not alone. This is at least one of nine documented U.S. cases of wrongful arrests based on facial recognition.

In 2020, Robert Williams was wrongfully arrested in Detroit after facial recognition software misidentified him in a theft case. The city later paid him $300,000 and changed its policies.

The pattern is becoming clear.

Facial recognition is not being treated as a tool. It is being treated as irrefutable evidence.

A System That Doesn’t Know How to Doubt Itself

What this case reveals is something bigger than a single error.

We are entering a world where algorithms do not just assist decisions. They begin them.

And once a system begins moving based on that output, it can be very difficult to stop.

There are no natural pauses. No built-in skepticism. No moment where the system forces itself to ask, “What if this is wrong?”

For nearly six months, an innocent woman sat in jail because no one asked that question.

The Question We Should All Be Asking

Technology will continue to advance. Facial recognition will improve. AI systems will become more powerful.

That is not the real issue.

The real question is this:

What safeguards exist between an algorithm’s suggestion and a life-altering decision?

Because in this case, none

worked.

An algorithm made a suggestion. Authorities took it as fact.

This isn’t just a tech glitch—it’s a betrayal of the fundamental American principle that no one should lose their liberty without real evidence and a fair chance to prove innocence.

Is This Really Over?

As of this writing, the Fargo Mayor and Police Department both maintain that Lipps remains a “person of interest,” asserting that charges could technically be refiled.

She is left with nothing: no home, no car, and not even her beloved dog to provide comfort. She must now attempt to navigate a society that has seen her arrested and jailed for nearly six months, all while remaining tethered to a crime that—logically and geographically—defies the laws of physics and common sense.

AUTHOR

Martin Mawyer

Martin Mawyer is the founder of the Digital Intelligence Project and the President of Christian Action Network. He is the host of the “Shout Out Patriots” podcast, and author of When Evil Stops Hiding. For more action alerts, cultural commentary, and real-world campaigns defending faith, family, and freedom, subscribe to Patriot Majority Report.

©2026 . All rights reserved.


Please visit the Patriot Majority Report substack.

Bureaucrats’ Political Donations Hint Census Bureau Over-Counting for Democrats May Not Be Coincidental

Undercounting the population in red states like Texas and Florida in 2020 cost Republicans at least six seats in the House of Representatives, while overcounting in blue states like California and New York contributed to 18 new Democratic seats, according to Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-Texas).

“In 2020, the Census Bureau undercounted in primarily deep-red states like Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi, Tennessee and Texas, all red, while overcounting in radical blue states like Delaware, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, and Rhode Island,” Hunt told a November 19, 2025, hearing of the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government.

“This egregious error led to many states being denied proper representation in Congress and the Electoral College. So much so that these errors costs Republicans … six seats in the House. In addition to the 2020 miscounting, including illegal immigrants in the Census has improperly granted radical Left blue states 12 additional seats in the United States House of Representatives. That is a total of 18 seats gain and that is a huge problem. And those are the facts,” Hunt told the hearing.

The Census Bureau acknowledged the over and under counts in a May 2025 report. The Census Bureau uses its population counts as the basis for determining how many House of Representatives seats are in each of the 50 states. The census counts all present individuals without distinguishing between citizens and noncitizens, meaning a higher head count gives a state more House seats, without regard to citizenship status. It is illegal for noncitizens to vote in all federal elections, as well as the vast majority of state and local contests.

Not all of the undercounted states were red, as deep-blue Illinois was among this group, while not all of the overcounted states were blue. Ohio and Utah, both red states, were among the over-counted group, according to the Census report.

Most congressional Republicans like Hunt support requiring Census Bureau counters to at least include a question about the citizenship of every counted individual, while most congressional Democrats oppose such a requirement. The issue has intensified in recent years, especially during the Biden administration’s open-border era in which millions of illegal immigrants crossed into the U.S.

Legislation originally introduced in the House of Representatives in 2025 by Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) — The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act — requires proof of citizenship when registering to vote and provides criminal penalties for violations. The measure, which has 110 House co-sponsors, including Hunt, passed the lower chamber but has not been acted upon by the Senate. President Donald Trump supports the measure.

Hunt did not address the issue of whether political bias within the Census Bureau’s workforce could be a factor in the significant under and overcounting, but The Washington Stand’s review of Federal Election Commission (FEC) campaign contribution data for the years 2023, 2024, and 2025 found a huge bias in favor of Democrats among donors who said they work for the agency.

During the three years indicated, the FEC records disclosed 4,037 contributions by individuals who listed “U.S. Census Bureau” as their employer. Of those contributions, 3,583 went to Democrats, compared to 455 made to Republicans, for a 7-1 ratio. The average Democrat contribution was for $29, while the average Republican contribution was $229.

Interestingly, the total dollar value of the contributions by Census Bureau workers to Democrats was $104,597, only slightly more than the $104,130 total given to Republicans.

Federal workers like those at the Census Bureau are covered by the Hatch Act, which bars partisan political activities by government employees while on official duty. The Hatch Act does not limit the right of government employees to work for candidates while off-duty, to contribute to the candidates of their choice, or to participate in activities supporting candidates, as long as federal property is not used in the process.

Two-thirds of the Democratic contributions, or 1,999 of the 3,582 total, were given through Act Blue, a digital site that acts as a conduit for campaign funding from individuals to favored candidates. Winred, the similar digital site created by Republicans to counter Act Blue, accounted for only 253 contributions to GOP candidates by Census Bureau workers.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris, the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee, received 347 contributions from Census workers, compared to just 69 for Trump, her 2024 Republican rival.

Apprised of the Census Bureau employee contribution bias, Hunt provided the following statement to The Washington Stand:

“The inaccuracies and deliberate manipulations embedded in Democrat-led Census reporting expose a level of corruption that plagued the previous administration and continues today under radical Left leadership. Despite these efforts, the American people saw through the deception and delivered a decisive victory for Donald Trump in the last election.

“Now, with Republicans holding all three chambers of government, we have both the responsibility and the obligation to correct these abuses immediately and restore integrity to the process by ensuring that Census data reflects only United States citizens.

“The irony is unmistakable. For years, Democrats have warned of a supposed threat to democracy, while actively engaging in the very practices that undermine it — manipulating systems designed to distort representation and influence elections. Democracy is not endangered by transparency and lawful governance. It is endangered by those who abuse institutions for political gain.”

Hunt will not be in the House of Representatives in 2027, as he is seeking the Republican nomination for the Senate in a hotly contested primary that also includes Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and the Lone Star State’s long-serving incumbent, Senator John Cornyn. The primary election is March 3.

AUTHOR

Mark Tapscott

Mark Tapscott is senior congressional analyst at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2026 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Mamdani’s Rent Czar Breaks Down When Asked About Mother’s Reportedly $1.6M Tennessee Home

A senior aide in New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration grew visibly upset when asked about her mother reportedly owning a home worth millions.

Cea Weaver, a far-left activist who heads Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s Office to Protect Tenants, apparently teared up and ran down the street when reporters — including one from the Daily Mail — approached her outside her Brooklyn apartment Wednesday morning, according to a Daily Mail report.

Weaver was asked about her mother, Celia Applegate, who reportedly owns a home in Nashville, Tennessee. Through tears, Weaver replied, “No,” declining to comment, before quickly retreating back inside her building, according to the report.

The encounter has drawn attention to Weaver’s past statements criticizing private property ownership. She has previously argued that owning private property perpetuates “white supremacy” — despite her own mother, a professor of German Studies at Vanderbilt University, who owns a Craftsman home worth $1.6 million, the New York Post reported, citing records.

In a 2019 post on X (then Twitter), she wrote, “Private property including and kind of ESPECIALLY homeownership is a weapon of white supremacy masquerading as ‘wealth building’ public policy,” according to screenshots.

However, at the time Weaver sent the post, her professor mother had already been the owner of a 3,400-square-foot home in Nashville for seven years.

Applegate and her partner bought their home for $814,000 in 2012, and its value has since doubled to $1.6 million, according to property records cited by the New York Post.

Weaver’s past criticism of homeownership resurfaced Monday in a viral X thread by writer Michelle Tandler, which featured more than a dozen screenshots from Weaver’s now-deleted account dating from 2016 to 2022.

Beyond her social media activity, several of Weaver’s earlier remarks opposing private property ownership were also captured on video.

“I think the reality is, is that for centuries we’ve really treated property as an individualized good and not a collective good,” she said, adding that “transitioning to treating it as a collective good and towards a model of shared equity will require that we think about it differently,” Weaver said in the 2021 YouTube video for the NYC Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), an organization to which both she and Mamdani belong.

“And it will mean that families, especially white families but some POC [people of color] families who are homeowners as well, are gonna have a different relationship to property than the one that we currently have,” Weaver added in the video.

After the posts resurfaced and circulated widely online, the Mamdani official described her past remarks as “regretful.”

“Regretful comments from years ago do not change what has always been clear — my commitment to making housing affordable and equitable for New York’s renters,” Weaver said in a Tuesday statement to The New York Times, released by Mamdani’s press office.

AUTHOR

Ashley Brasfield

Reporter

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

EXCLUSIVE: Trump Admin Executes Massive Crime Crackdown In Memphis

President Donald Trump’s federalization of Memphis, Tennessee, is proving successful with crime numbers dropping as thousands of federal agents hit the streets to make arrests, the Daily Caller has learned.

After cleaning up Washington D.C., Trump announced in early September that he would next be sending the National Guard to Memphis. He created a task force deploying other federal agencies like the FBI, ATF and DOJ to the city to focus on cracking down on crime beginning on Sept. 29.

As of Thursday, 2,213 arrests have been made during Trump’s crackdown, according to a daily police report on the effort obtained by the Daily Caller. To date, 139 known gang members have been caught, 379 firearms have been seized and 97 missing children have been found as a part of the effort.

“The numbers clearly show that Memphis is safer thanks to President Trump’s federal surge,” Attorney General Pam Bondi told the Caller in a statement.

“Our agents from the FBI, DEA, US Marshals, and ATF have done incredible work alongside HSI and local police to combat violent crime and restore safety to an iconic American city. Tolerating crime is a choice, and this Department of Justice chooses law and order,” she added.

On Thursday, the most recent day of the crackdown, 1,639 agents from 31 agencies were on the streets of Memphis making arrests, according to a daily police report on the effort obtained by the Caller. More are expected to hit the streets Friday.

During Thursday’s operation, one individual was arrested on a warrant for attempted first degree murder, a daily report obtained by the Caller shows. On Wednesday, one person was arrested on a warrant for second degree murder, that day’s report says. Other notable arrests from Wednesday’s operation included the arrest of an individual on a warrant for Rape of a Child, Aggravated Sexual Battery and Incest.

The Memphis Police Department posts crime data on the city website spanning from Oct. 1, one day after the operation began, to the current day. A 2024 column reflects the crime statistics from the same time period in the previous year, an administration official told the Caller.

Murder has dropped 52.38% comparing the time of Trump’s crackdown to the same time period last year, according to the data. Similarly, the data shows that sexual assault has dropped 55.56%, robbery has dropped 65.82%, burglary has dropped 33.98% and aggravated assault has dropped 47.30%.

Comparing data from Trump’s takeover to the same time period last year, motor vehicle theft is down 79.79%. In total, crime across those categories is down 46.65%.

On Friday, 158 National Guard agents will hit the streets to help clean up crime in Memphis, according to a daily report obtained by the Caller.

A month after Trump began his crime crackdown in Washington D.C., White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told the Caller that Trump would be open to working with Republican governors to stop crime in blue cities.

“Democrats have tried to argue that red states have higher crime rates while overlooking problems of high crime in blue cities. I’m wondering if the president would consider working with red state governors to fix high crime in blue cities, like in Memphis, Tennessee,” White House correspondent Reagan Reese asked Leavitt.

“The President wants to work with anyone across this country who wants to end these horrible policies and to bring law and order to our streets, and I think that is proven by his tremendous cooperation with the mayor of Washington, D.C., and our nation’s capital, and just look at the results of that,” the press secretary said before touting statistics from Trump’s crime crackdown.

AUTHOR

Reagan Reese

White House Correspondent

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republised with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Tennessee: Mohamed Mohamed Rapes Unconscious Woman in Front of Church Just Before She Dies

Once again, we see the result of bringing into the country large numbers of people who believe that unveiled women are asking to be raped and can be legitimately raped (cf. Qur’an 33:59).

“Tenn. Man Charged with Raping Unconscious Woman In Front of Church — Just Before She Died,” by Ben Brachfeld, People, August 15, 2025:

A Tennessee man is accused of raping a woman as she drifted in and out of consciousness by the front steps of a Nashville church — shortly before she died.

Mohamed Mohamed, 39, is charged with four counts of rape in relation to an alleged assault on an unconscious woman in front of the house of worship on Nolensville Pike in Nashville’s Woodbine neighborhood Thursday evening, according to a press release from the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department.

Authorities say a Fire Department crew was traveling down Nolensville Pike just after 9:30 p.m. on Aug. 14, when they spotted an alleged sexual assault taking place. The fire crew alleged that Mohamed was attempting to pull the woman’s pants up as they pulled over.

The woman, who remains a Jane Doe, was seen on surveillance video apparently under the influence, walking unsteadily and setting herself down on the steps. Police say Mohamed then approached her, sat down beside her and began touching her as she drifted in and out of consciousness, attempting to swat him away to no avail.

Mohamed then allegedly lifted her off the steps, set her on the ground and “repeatedly sexually assaulted her,” police wrote in the press release.

The woman was taken to Vanderbilt University Medical Center where she died soon after arriving….

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Tennessee Passes Landmark Human Smuggling Legislation into Law

On May 27, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee signed groundbreaking state-level human smuggling legislation into law.

Mass illegal immigration into our country during the Biden administration has turned every state into a border state. Increased supply of dangerous drugs such as fentanyl, combined with expanded human trafficking, have caused a severe strain on states and community resources.  

Hundreds of thousands of unaccompanied children have been released to sponsors across the country. In all too many cases, these sponsors were actually fronts for traffickers. An unknown number of unaccompanied children fell into the full control of the cartels and blackmarket human traffickers. 

States must pass laws to deter illegal immigration and give state and local law enforcement the tools they need to perform duties to stop and apprehend human smugglers. States should continue working to find solutions to mitigate the dangers associated with allowing millions of unvetted illegal aliens to cross into America and ensure public safety. Tennessee has taken the lead with its new human smuggling law. 

Even before the Trump administration designated drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, a relationship had been forming between transnational criminal organizations and terrorist groups in terms of human smuggling. Cartels have leveraged existing drug smuggling “ratlines” across the US southern border to establish human smuggling corridors. Now, they reportedly make more money off of human smuggling than they do off of drug smuggling. This is because the overwhelming majority of human smuggling victims are young females who are sold into sex slavery where they become ongoing sources of revenue. 

The key difference today is that the revenue stream is providing material support for foreign terrorist organizations.

Just as worrisome is the fact that over the past 4 years of Biden-Mayorkas malfeasance, cartels used the same routes to smuggle known terrorists and criminals into the U.S. thereby threatening U.S. national security and the safety of US citizens.

Enhanced investigation, enforcement, prosecution and intelligence sharing between local, state and federal law enforcement may be the best way to detect, prevent and put an end to human smuggling into and throughout the U.S. 

The landmark human smuggling law passed in Tennessee is a major step toward making the state and local criminal justice system and law enforcement meaningful partners and force multipliers to stop this activity and improve public safety. 

 The legislation, authored by Representative Chris Todd and Senator Brent Taylor, was needed because there is a distinction between human trafficking and human smuggling that had gone unaddressed. 

Human smuggling victims are distinct from other victims of human trafficking, who are often trafficked by family members, relatives and friends in small numbers (typically ones and twos). The different nature of human smuggling and especially the criminal and terrorist organizations behind it, require a finer point to the law.  

  • Human smuggling involves: 
  • Crossing international borders 
  • Trafficking larger numbers of victims at a time 
  • Control by organized crime in the form of terrorist cartels and others 

A whole new illicit, underground industry was built up in the US over the past 4 years due to malfeasant border policies and rampant illegal immigration. The Mexican cartels had been in charge of the border, not US law enforcement. Those cartels have only recently, since the beginning of the Trump administration, been designated as foreign terrorist organizations. Moreover, it wasn’t until President Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ordered the US military to the border that the border came under control.

The terrorist cartels have expanded their reach across America. They have brought thousands of “unaccompanied minors” into the United States. Most of those minors are young girls who are subjected to unbelievably cruel and abusive situations, including sex slavery. Tragically, some non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have been implicated in human trafficking and human smuggling.

Unfortunately, the human smuggling legislation in Tennessee came under unfounded attack from the extremist Left.

Leftists made the specious accusation that the new law would criminalize family members or religious groups who are “performing acts of charity.”

In reality, the law targets human traffickers who force largely minor females into “involuntary labor servitude, forced labor, trafficking for commercial sex acts, prostitution and human smuggling.”

None of these activities is something that a loving family or legitimate charitable organization would be involved in.

In the new law human smuggling is defined as transporting one or more victims for the purpose of commercial advantage or private financial gain.  No loving family or legitimate charitable organization would be involved in human trafficking/smuggling for commercial advantage or private financial gain. 

Border czar and former Obama administration US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Tom Homan reports that as many of 300,000 unaccompanied minors who came across the southern border are unaccounted for. Many of them became trafficking victims. Tragically and outrageously, the US government became complicit in this trade as those minors were passed on to unvetted “sponsors” by our government. Homan reports that many of those sponsors were actually traffickers.

Tennessee’s new human smuggling law gives law enforcement and the criminal justice system effective tools for prosecuting human smugglers and is focused on the methods and techniques that they use, namely forced labor and forced sex slavery, all for commercial advantage and financial gain.

In the months and years ahead, look for other states to adopt the Tennessee model to combat human smugglers.

AUTHOR

Christopher Holton

Senior Analyst and Director of State Outreach.

EDITORS NOTE: This Center for Security Policy column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Trump’s First Federal Judicial Nominees Fought Against Sex Changes For Kids, Limitless Abortion

President Donald Trump began making his first few federal judicial appointments in recent days, naming several individuals who have been prosecuting violent crime, arguing in front of the Supreme Court and defending various culture-war issues.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told the Daily Caller in March she did not have an update on when the nominations or vetting would begin, but said she would provide a list of names to the outlet.

Nearly two months later, Trump began those appointments, naming a handful of Missourians to district courts as well as one individual to sit on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

Joshua M. Divine of Missouri was appointed Tuesday by Trump to serve as judge on both the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri and Western District of Missouri. Divine is the solicitor general of Missouri and director of special litigation in the Missouri Attorney General’s Office. He was previously chief counsel to Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley and deputy solicitor general in the Missouri Attorney General’s (AG) Office.

Divine was also a law clerk to both Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and Judge William H. Pryor of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. He attended Yale Law School, where he was a member of the Yale Law Journal and the Yale Law & Policy Review, according a White House press release.

During his time with the Missouri Attorney General’s office, Divine represented the state against a lawsuit attempting to overturn Missouri’s restrictions on puberty blockers and hormone treatment for minors. Wright County Circuit Court Judge Craig Carter ultimately sided with Divine and the state.

Divine also argued in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri in favor of a block of President Joe Biden’s proposed income-driven repayment plan for borrowers. The court later granted the state its motion to block the student loan forgiveness plan.

While working under Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, Divine argued on behalf of the state for a $24 billion judgment against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for its role in the COVID-19 pandemic. A federal judge later granted the judgement after finding the CCP liable for damages concerning the hoarding of personal protective equipment during the 2020 pandemic.

Whitney Hermandorfer, Trump’s pick for the Appeals Court for the Sixth Circuit, is the director of the Strategic Litigation Unit in the Office of the Tennessee Attorney General. Hermandorfer was previously a law clerk to Supreme Court Justices Samuel A. Alito and Amy Coney Barrett, as well as Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and Judge Richard J. Leon of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.

Hermandorfer played Division I basketball at Princeton University, attended George Washington University Law School and was editor-in-chief of the George Washington University Law Review.

Recently, Hermandorfer argued on behalf of the state of Tennessee in front of the Supreme Court for the case United States v. Skrmetti. During Biden’s term, his administration challenged the state of Tennessee’s law banning child sex-change procedures.

Hermandorfer has also argued against broadening sex discrimination laws to protect individuals from being discriminated based on their gender identity, which often extends to bathroom and locker room use. Additionally, she challenged a government rule that required states to help employees who elected to obtain an abortion.

Maria A. Lanahan, Trump’s pick to serve as a judge on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, is the principal deputy solicitor general in the Missouri AG’s Office. She clerked for Judge Raymond Gruender of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit and Michigan Supreme Court Justice Brian K. Zahra. Lanahan played Division I basketball at Gonzaga University and attended the University of Chicago Law School, where she served as an Articles Editor of the University of Chicago Law Review.

While working under Bailey, Lanahan has focused on statutory interpretation, tax litigation, writs, and constitutional issues, according to the AG’s press release. Lanahan argued in 2023 on behalf of the state in defense of Missouri’s decision to outlaw abortion.

Trump also nominated Zachary M. Bluestone, of Missouri, to serve as judge on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. Bluestone is the appellate chief and violent crimes prosecutor in the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Missouri. He previously served in the Missouri AG’s Office as deputy solicitor general and was a law clerk to Judge Raymond Gruender of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.

Bluestone attended Harvard Law School, where he served as managing editor of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy. As an assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Missouri, he focused on the prosecution of violent crimes and criminal appeals.

In one case Bluestone was a prosecutor for, a judge sentenced a former St. Louis middle school principal to two consecutive life terms in prison after he was found guilty of hiring a friend to kill his pregnant schoolteacher girlfriend.

Edward Aloysius O’Connell was nominated Tuesday by Trump to serve as associate judge on the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. He was previously chief of staff and deputy general counsel of the Office of the Inspector General of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. O’Connell was also a prosecutor in the Office of the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia for nearly two decades where he prosecuted homicides, felony major crimes, domestic violence, organized crime, and narcotics offenses, according to the White House press release.

O’Connell clerked for Judge Rufus King III of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia after he graduated from Quinnipiac University School of Law.

“Our Court System is not letting me do the job I was Elected to do. Activist judges must let the Trump Administration deport murderers, and other criminals who have come into our Country illegally, WITHOUT DELAY!!!” Trump said in a Truth Social post following his appointments.

AUTHOR

Reagan Reese

White House Correspondent. Follow Reagan on Twitter.

RELATED ARTICLE: Deadly Sabotage Could Destroy Trump’s Legacy, And America Too

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Tennessee AG Says SCOTUS Could Pave Way To Ending Child Sex Changes And Saving Women’s Sports With Just One Ruling

The Supreme Court’s forthcoming ruling on state child sex change bans could impact a range of issues related to gender identity, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The justices heard oral arguments Wednesday on Tennessee’s law banning medical procedures intended to help a child live as an identity “inconsistent” with their sex, which the Biden administration argues violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.

“There’s been no constitutional analysis of gender identity issues from the court prior to this,” Skrmetti told the DCNF on Thursday. “In the Bostock case, they were looking at statutory language.”

In the high court’s 2020 Bostock v. Clayton County decision, the majority held that discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity equates to sex discrimination in the employment context.

“So potentially, there could be language in the opinion that significantly impacts not just the protection for kids from gender related procedures with life-altering impact,” Skrmetti said. “There could be an impact on litigation about women’s sports teams, about bathroom privacy, potentially other areas of law.”

Skrmetti believes his team did a great job defending the case before the court but acknowledges “you never want to predict” what is going to happen. Win or lose, the court could opt to issue a narrow ruling, or something broader and precedent-setting.

“The court asked a lot of brilliant questions,” he said. “It was a long argument because I think they recognize this could be a significant case precedentially, and they have months now to think about it and work through it, so there’s a long way to go before we get a decision.”

Several conservative justices pointed to European countries limiting gender transition procedures for children. Justice Samuel Alito questioned why the government claimed that overwhelming evidence supports the use of puberty blockers and hormone therapy while failing to acknowledge studies indicating otherwise, such as the Cass report commissioned by the National Health Service (NHS) England.

Meanwhile, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson drew a parallel between banning child sex changes and bans on interracial marriage. “I’m worried that we’re undermining the foundations of some of our bedrock equal protection cases,” she said.

Tennessee contends its law does not draw lines based on sex, but based on medical purpose. Giving testosterone to a girl will have vastly different effects than giving it to a boy, the state argues.

Nearly half of all U.S. states have passed laws like Tennessee’s. Skrmetti is certain that this won’t be a decision of “no consequence.”

“The risks to kids are profound. You’re talking about potential lifelong loss of the ability to have children, the lifelong loss of the ability to have sexual function, a life of dealing with tumors and blood clots, bone density disorders, cognitive impairments,” he said. “So it’s not something to be taken lightly.”

AUTHOR

Katelynn Richardson

Contributor.

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Supreme Court Tips Its Hand on Transgender Procedures for Minors

SCOTUS Conservatives Seem Ready To Uphold Child Sex Change Bans — But One Justice Is A Wild Card

As SCOTUS Considers Major Trans Case, Pleas for Children to Be Protected Abound

DOJ Doubles Down on Gag Order of Surgeon Who Blew Whistle on Child Sex Changes

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.


All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Helene Death Toll Rises in NC and TN, Military Finally Given Orders to Help

“Evil beyond belief.  I just can’t get over how vile these people are!  I can’t get my mind around the situation and understand why G-d hasn’t smote them.  Calling and working toward the death of 4 billion “useless eaters” with orchestrated “disasters,” adulterating and destroying the food supply, using biological and chemical weapons, destroying life-saving energy supplies, encouraging lawlessness, engaging in nonsensical and deadly wars.” — PURPOSELY HURTING human beings made in G-d’s image.

“The Helene, East Palestine, Lahaina tragedies have brought this into such sharp relief.  They are so NOT like us and can execute their plans minus any burden of guilt. It’s beyond my understanding.” — Janet Levy Ross


North Carolina is in total chaos. Americans are stranded in the mountains. It appears as though our government has waited until people are lost and dying before they’ve ordered military help.  Ft. Bragg has medical helicopters that could have been there in 3 hours on the first day.

Civilian helicopters have been helping, but were turned back in many instances by sheriffs or FEMA.

Listen to this woman from Tennessee telling what is happening in the North Carolina mountains.  It’s only five minutes.

Click this link, it’s on X.com.  Musk allows even non-members.

Eight days into this nightmare, the US Army North is beginning to respond to the horrors in Northeast Tennessee and Northwest North Carolina.  How many are dead who may have been saved because of the despicable delayed response by our Stalinist run government?

Finally, at the request of FEMA, and in support of North Carolina and NC’s National Guard, the U.S. Army North is mobilizing active-duty Title 10 troops to assist with the Helene response and recovery.

Soldiers, equipment and resources, we don’t know just what, are being sent via the 82nd Combat Aviation Brigade, the 82nd Airborne Division and the 20th Engineer Brigade of the XVIII Airborne Corps.  They are headed to Asheville, NC.  They are also sending rotary wing air support and various engineering equipment for emergency route clearance.  Bet me when they see what they’re dealing with, they’ll radio back that they will need far more.

They are supposedly going to partner with FEMA, but we haven’t seen squat from FEMA, and neither has Glenn Beck who has been there.  The federal government has absolutely no right to stop neighbors from helping neighbors.

The Joint Force Land Component Commander, through USNORTHCOM, is the primary DoD organization coordinating defense support of civil authorities to assist federal partners in natural or man-made disasters.

Sorry folks, but where were they over a week ago when all hell broke loose in these mountains!

Here is Glenn Beck’s response.  It will both horrify you and make you proud of our fellow Americans.

The Devastating Reality

Last evening I spoke with our former county sheriff, Tim Hutchison.  You may know of him because almost 18 years ago, he was instrumental in capturing the four black men and one black woman who murdered the young college couple, Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom, Jr.

Sheriff Hutchison has already been to NC with a Huey packed with supplies.

Hutchison’s helicopter crew was in Katrina rescuing and saving people and animals.  He said that on day two there were 20 helicopters in Louisiana, day three there were 15 more and by day four, 200 more.  Big difference with the Helene catastrophe.  We’re over 10 days out and the rescue missions are just now getting their orders to help.

General Mike Flynn has been on this from the beginning.  He lives in Florida and has seen damage from previous hurricanes.  He was interviewed by Benny Johnson who asked the General, “Where is the American military?”  The video is 35 minutes long, but General Flynn speaks nearly the entire time and clearly lays out the horrific devastation of Helene, especially in Asheville and the North Carolina mountains.

Since I know that many of you don’t have the time to listen when this is so very important, I’ll give you some of the highlights.  If you read my previous article on Helene and the damages, the General validates some of the rumors I listed.

Mike Flynn tells us there are over 150 counties from Apalachicola, Florida all the way up to the western mountains of Appalachia, North Carolina who are in a complete disaster zone. “It is a federal emergency of epic proportions, of Biblical proportions, and the federal government has totally been absent. In NC, there are over 1,000 dead who have been confirmed to me with just the body bags that have been filled. There are insufficient numbers of body bags.”

He says there are bodies laying aside that have not been bagged and he expects that they’ll have over 2,000 dead when this is over, if not more.  Katrina was responsible for 1,392 deaths.

Mike tells us that the terrain and weather are what first must be considered in rescues, but the weather in the mountains at night is in the 30s now.  How can people survive without food, water and shelter?  And by the end of this month, nights will be below freezing.

“The federal government has done nothing.”

The Irish in Flynn rises up when he tells Benny Johnson that the money the government has is our money and he is speaking directly to Speaker Mike Johnson who as the head of the House can reallocate funds from one line item to another line item, with one simple vote, especially for disaster recovery in the United States.  The President, who doesn’t even know what storm we’re talking about, can actually send funds immediately with the stroke of a pen or orders to subordinates.  The president also has the authority to federalize and call out the National Guard with Army divisions capabilities.

There is plenty of FEMA money, but Open the Books tells us that because FEMA failed to follow correct procedures and bookkeeping, the agency has $8.3 billion in “unliquidated obligations” set aside to help victims of storms from before 2012! That’s according to a Homeland Security Office of Inspector General report titled “FEMA’s Inadequate Oversight Led to Delays in Closing Out Declared Disasters.”

This is money that FEMA has promised to spend, but it’s unclear when or if it will actually help American families. That’s a dozen years ago!

Meanwhile, the money can’t be used to help victims of Helene, previous hurricanes, or looming storms like Milton.

This is total insanity!

Flynn says we need a full division, an active division who has all the materials and facilities to help every situation in this crisis.  “NC Forestry helicopters at Hickory Airfield in NC, were sitting idle for five days, and the pilots who know that part of the country like the back of their hands, were so frustrated because they were directed, ‘Don’t do anything.’  One phone call was made to Lt. Governor Robinson, and I’m going to give him a lot of cred right now because in that phone call, he told me that nobody was answering the phones in the governor’s office of NC, nobody was answering his calls to the DHS or in the White House. So, Mark went to the airfield and under his authority, directed those helicopters to go.”

There are a number of federal organizations who should have been put under a military unit immediately.  The incompetence with FEMA and these organizations, not to mention the hierarchy in the federal government reaching to Biden and Harris, is as ineffectual and unskilled as the Secret Service at the first Trump rally in Butler, PA.

Once again, the purposeful disregard for human life is overt, not to mention the entire federal government being weaponized by former President Obama and his minions, Valerie Jarrett, John Brennan, James Clapper and Eric Holder.

Low level soldiers in Ft. Bragg are taking leave for a couple days to a week to go home to these mountains and help their people.

Mike tells Benny that there are gun shots being fired, looting going on, the people fighting back.  And there are children they are finding with ropes on their arms and legs where they were tied to trees by their parents (to save them from washing away) and their parents are now dead and the children were able to get recovered.

“There are reports of illegals, of allegations of these illegals, raping some of these children.  This is brutal, and this is a war zone, and when you have a war zone like that, you’re going to have all sorts of nefarious people and actors.  The only way for a well-done, legitimate execution of recovery operation to take place, is if the United States government commits at least a brigade sized task force with about 7 or 8,000 soldiers with all the requisite capabilities for an operation this size.”

There is money and there are people in the government who can allocate all that is needed, but they’ve been purposely silent.

The General says, “Joe Biden is not there, Joe Biden needs to be 25th Amendment ed out.  Kamala Harris, has no concept of what the military has and their ability to help.”

Lloyd Austin, Secretary of Defense, knows the capabilities of our military and is doing nothing.

Flynn said there are top men who do search and rescue who have helicopters and FEMA always calls them.  This time, nothing.  So, they’re up there on their own.  They’re getting fuel half price, and if we continue trying to do this by private citizens, they will need money for fuel.

Mike tells Benny, “We have people, American people, American citizens, that are at risk, that have died, that have lost every single thing that they owned.  We have the full ability in this country to take care of them right now for an immediate period of time and I’m talking about certainly for the next 90 days, maybe longer.  We can put them up like we put illegals up in hotels.  We can bring them in.  These are all things I know we’re capable of doing.

“And the military can get in there immediately and start to put people in at least tents, on a fairground and line it up like we’ve always done in places like overseas combat zones.  We get in there with Seabees and build plywood homes, we can bring in complements of trailers.  So much can be done, and our government is on its rearend doing nothing.  You know what they’re hoping?  They’re hoping it affects the outcome of the election particularly in places like Georgia, Tennessee and North Carolina who are affected so much.”

Certainly, this is not the end of this horror for these states, it will be years before the ravaged areas in NC and TN can be rebuilt.

General Flynn has a list of organizations that need donations who are helping the areas devastated by Helene.  I’ll send them out as soon as I receive them.

Conclusion

Helene’s destruction from Florida to North Carolina has wreaked havoc on the lives of the people and their communities.  So many lives have been lost, and the destruction is horrendous.  There aren’t adjectives to even describe the photos of the horrific damage.  There are important businesses also in these communities, mining of materials used world over.  We’ll look at them in the next article.

©2024. Kelleigh Nelson. All rights reserved.

RELATED VIDEO: Gov. DeSantis NUKES Kamala after she FREAKED OUT attacking him for ignoring her phone calls

Rep. Mark Green Leads Bid To Reverse Biden Admin’s ‘Politically Motivated’ Gun Restrictions

Republican Tennessee Rep. Mark Green on Wednesday took action to reverse a Biden administration rule placing new restrictions on firearm exports.

The rule, released by the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) on April 30, makes a number of changes to licensing requirements that could make it more difficult for firearm manufacturers and sellers to conduct business. Green, who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, introduced a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution to overturn the rule, along with 69 other Republicans.

“Congress cannot abandon American firearm exporters to the whims of an administration hellbent on undermining their businesses, their livelihoods, and their constitutional freedoms,” Green told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Congress has the authority to rein in rogue federal agencies—it’s time we used it.”

Republican Tennessee Sen. Bill Hagerty is introducing the Senate’s version of the CRA.

“This rule is another Operation Choke Point—a politically motivated effort that significantly harms Tennessee manufacturers—and will consequently destroy U.S. jobs and small businesses that support the firearm and ammunition industry,” Hagerty said in an April 30 statement. “The Biden administration has made clear that its goal is to damage the firearm industry that supplies the products that allow Americans to exercise their constitutional freedom. Crushing American exports is just a means to skirt the legislative process and do damage to yet another Biden-disfavored industry.”

The CRA comes on the heels of Green’s introduction of the Stop the Bureaucratic Ineptitude Shuttering Respectable and Upstanding Lawful Exporters Act (Stop the BIS RULE Act) bill in early May, which would prevent federal funds from being used “to finalize, implement, or enforce” the rule.

Green previously told the DCNF the rule would “harm American business owners, hinder the right of people overseas to protect themselves, and will allow China and Russia to fill the void.”

The rule lowers export license validity to one year rather than four, inserts a “crime control” licensing requirement that factors in crime in other countries and applies a “presumption of denial” to export applications to 36 countries deemed high-risk.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said in a statement announcing the new rule that it was designed to protect “America’s national security by making it harder for criminals, terrorists, and cartels to get their hands on U.S.-made firearms,” which she noted “fall into the wrong hands and end up being used in ways that directly undermine U.S. national security and foreign policy interests.”

BIS, an agency within the U.S. Department of Commerce, issued the rule following a 90-day pause on new export licenses for civilian firearms, which was announced in October but ultimately lasted over 180 days.

President Joe Biden has a long history of supporting gun control. As a senator in 1994, he helped pass a ten- year ban on “assault weapons” and continues to advocate for a federal ban.

AUTHOR

KATELYNN RICHARDSON

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLE: Biden Proposes Increasing Budget Of Agency Pushing Gun Regulations By 30%

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.


All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Republican Lawmakers Set Their Sights On Abortion ‘Trafficking’ In Latest Post-Dobbs Fight

  • Republican state lawmakers are going after abortion “trafficking” in an effort to stop abortion advocates from evading state bans around the country and protect pregnant minors. 
  • Idaho, Texas and now Tennessee have all pushed legislation on the issue and Republican state Rep. Jason Zachary of Tennessee told the Daily Caller News Foundation that his bill was personal after he had been “directly involved” with a family whose 14-year-old daughter had been taken away to get an abortion without their knowledge.
  • “It should be the easiest thing in the world to say it’s unacceptable for an adult to take somebody else’s kid anywhere without their parents knowing,” Katie Daniels, state policy director for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, told the DCNF.

Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, Republican state lawmakers have proposed a variety of pro-life laws, with three states placing a new focus on abortion “trafficking.”

Following the Dobbs decision, Idaho became the first state in 2023 to pass a bill enforcing criminal penalties for individuals “trafficking” a minor to another state to get an abortion and since then, Texas and Tennessee have followed suit on both the state and local levels. Republican state Rep. Jason Zachary of Tennessee told the Daily Caller News Foundation that he introduced his bill Monday after having been involved in a situation where a 14-year-old girl was taken without her parents’ knowledge to get an abortion last year.

“A young girl, a 14-year-old girl in East Tennessee, unbeknownst to her guardian was taken to West Tennessee and was not notified until the child was taken to West Tennessee. The child called the parents and said, ‘I’m in West Tennessee and I’m being taken to get an abortion.’ I was on the phone with the dad and the mom, [who were] crying asking me what I can do to help stop it. There was nothing I could do,” Zachary told the DCNF.

Zachary’s bill would make it a “criminal offense” for anyone other than a parent or guardian to take a minor out of Tennessee for an abortion and also “provide for a civil action against a person committing the offense of abortion trafficking of a minor for the wrongful death of an unborn child that was aborted,” according to the text. If passed a minor could not travel with someone other than their legal guardian to get a chemical or surgical abortion.

Texas has taken a slightly different approach than Idaho or Tennessee as multiple city councils have established new ordinances barring its citizens from being transported on their state highways to get an abortion, according to the Texas Tribune. The city council in Amarillo, Texas, is one of the latest to consider a travel ban but postponed any vote during a meeting on Dec. 19 for further review.

If passed, Amarillo’s ordinance would allow private citizens to sue anyone who “aids and abet[s]” someone to get an abortion using the highways, according to the Texas Tribune. Similar measures have been proposed in other counties, such as LubbockLlano, Odessa, Dallas and San Antonio, according to The Washington Post.

Some city council members have expressed concerns that the ordinances and their framing may be too extreme, according to the Post.

“I hate abortion. I’m a Jesus lover like all of you in here,” Llano councilwoman Laura Almond said during a meeting in August, according to the Post. She explained that in college she had once picked up a friend from an abortion clinic and that the law would have put her at risk of a lawsuit despite her personal beliefs on the subject.

“It’s overreaching,” Almond said during the meeting, according to the Post. “We’re talking about people here.”

Republicans have struggled on the issue of abortion over the last several elections due to poor messaging and a divided base regarding how strong candidates should be on pro-life issues. With the presidential election coming up in November, Katie Daniels, state policy director for Susan B. Anthony (SBA) Pro-Life America, told the DCNF that it will be important for Republican candidates endorsing any kind of abortion legislation, including anti-trafficking measures, to “talk about what they are for” and not just what they are against.

“It should be the easiest thing in the world to say it’s unacceptable for an adult to take somebody else’s kid anywhere without their parents knowing, let alone to another state for a medical procedure that’s illegal in their state. That should be a real point of consensus, regardless of political party,” Daniels said. “Beyond that, candidates should be talking about what they’re for. They’re for resources being available to women and their children, they’re for the pregnancy centers that help these women and they are for the life of both the mom and her baby.”

Daniels argued polling had found that “two-thirds of Americans” support parental notification and consent before minors can get a chemical abortion through the mail and a Rasmussen poll from July 2022 found that 64% of Americans support parental notification before a child gets an abortion.

“This is a very common sense position if you ask normal people. It’s politicians who are tied up to the industry that seem to have trouble with it,” Daniels told the DCNF.

AUTHOR

KATE ANDERSON

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLE: CVS Employee Sues After Company Allegedly Revoked Religious Exemption To Avoid Prescribing Contraceptives

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.


All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Chaos Unravels As Anti-Gun Activists Swarm Inside Tennessee Capitol

Hundreds of protesters swarmed the Tennessee State Capitol on Thursday demanding gun control in the wake of Monday’s deadly school shooting.

Protesters showed up outside the capitol Thursday morning as lawmakers began their session, according to WKRN. Protesters were calling for stronger gun control following Monday’s shooting in which 28-year-old transgender Audrey Hale killed three nine-year-olds and three adults at a Christian elementary school.

One organizer told WKRN they hope “that we can make change.”

“It’s a tough state, I get it,” organizer Maryam Abolfazli said, according to WKRN.

Protesters overwhelmed the Capitol, filling the hallways and eventually making their way to the legislative session chambers.

Video shows a massive group of protesters screaming and trying to break past a group of troopers. One male protester storms through and is immediately taken into custody by authorities before being released as the crowd chants “give him back!”

Another video shows protesters in the legislative chambers chanting “no action, no peace” and “enough is enough.”

Authorities managed to clear the Capitol and resumed their session, according to reports.

AUTHOR

BRIANNA LYMAN

News and commentary writer. Follow Brianna on Twitter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.


All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

TENNESSEE: Bill advances to ban drag shows, other adult entertainment on public property

A society is in a moral crisis when it becomes necessary for a bill to be sponsored to safeguard kids in public places. Although the bill is aimed at “go-go dancers, exotic dancers, and strippers on public property,” it is hardly a secret that the trans agenda has come to include grooming children in vulgar performances that are inappropriate for children.

Republican Rep. Chris Todd, who sponsored the bill, called it a “common-sense” “child safety” bill. Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson introduced the bill. People have lost sight of what responsible censorship is even means. It is glaring how the far Left uses charges of censorship to shut down speech that does not suit its agenda and that they claim to consider “offensive,” but they have no problem with the overt, public corruption of children. The sexualizing and grooming of young children is relentlessly becoming normalized. That’s why laws of this kind are needed.

Tennessee bill aims to ban drag shows, other adult entertainment on public property

by Lawrence Richard, Fox News, February 1, 2023:

The state of Tennessee could bar drag shows and other adult entertainment performances, pending a bill that is advancing through the state’s legislature.

A bill banning go-go dancers, exotic dancers, and strippers on public property and for those under the age of 18 was approved by the Tennessee House Criminal Justice Subcommittee on Tuesday, according to FOX 17 Nashville. It will now advance to the House Criminal Justice Committee.

“This is a common-sense child safety bill,” said Rep. Chris Todd, a Republican who sponsored HB. 9, per the report.

The bill intends to prohibit “adult cabaret entertainment” that is “harmful to minors,” including “male or female impersonators who provide entertainment that appeals to a prurient interest, or similar entertainers.”

“There’s confusion in the law of what performances are covered. This clarifies what is crossing the line that is harmful to minors,” Todd added.

While the bill effectively bans drag shows, it does not specifically use the term.

Republicans in the state have contended that drag shows can result in the “sexualization” or “grooming” of children.

Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson, a Republican, introduced the legislation near the end of 2022 with his own bill that limits gender-care surgeries for those under 18.

“We are not going to expose our children to this type of inappropriate, sexually explicit performances,” Sen. Johnson told the station in November 2022, after drag performances where kids were present were becoming more popular……

Read more.

AUTHOR

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Tennessee lawyer files free speech lawsuit after being fired for ‘anti-Islam’ and pro-Trump tweets

Jerry Morgan gave the details of this case in an exclusive Jihad Watch article HERE. Get more background on this case HERE, where Robert Spencer stated:

What disparaging remarks did Morgan make? Did he say that Muslims were “the most vile of created beings”? No, that’s what the Islamic holy book, the Qur’an, calls non-Muslims (98:6). Did he call Muslims “apes and pigs”? No, that’s what the Qur’an calls Jews (2:63-65, 5:59-60, 7:166). Did he say Muslims were “unclean”? No, that’s what the Qur’an says of non-Muslims (9:28).

So what egregious statements did Morgan actually make?

As it turned out, he has been forced to resign for “praising President Donald Trump for ‘stopping Muslims’ and ‘talking big against Muslims,’” and “said Islam was not a peaceful religion and made comments linking the faith with violence and ‘Muslim terrorists.’”

To our dhimmi overlords, however, all that matters is that anything offensive to Islam/Muslims, even if it is true, must be shut down in accordance with Sharia blasphemy laws, which are well on the way to becoming mainstream in American society, despite the First Amendment. Jerry Morgan is one of the few who have had the courage to fight back, and we wish him well.

“Tennessee: State Lawyer Fired for ‘Anti-Islam’ Tweets Files Speech Suit,” 

Bloomberg Law, April 6, 2021:

An attorney alleges the Tennessee Supreme Court’s board of professional responsibility unlawfully fired him for posting Tweets that an opposing party said displayed anti-Muslim bias, arguing his social media posts were constitutionally protected political speech similar to that of former president Donald Trump.

The board of professional responsibility regulates licensed Tennessee attorneys. Jerry Morgan handled appeals to the state supreme court regarding attorney discipline, according to his complaint filed Monday at the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee.

Attorney Brian Manookian, who was undergoing disciplinary proceedings, filed a motion to disqualify Morgan, claiming he was an anti-Muslim bigot. Manookian cited multiple Tweets Morgan had posted that, among other things, praised then-candidate Trump for “talking about the #1 issue of our time—stopping Muslims” and disparaged Muslims and Democrats.

Manookian claimed Morgan had an anti-Islam bias that could prejudice him, because his wife was Muslim and his children were being raised in a Muslim household.

Morgan says his posts were “indisputably political in nature,” concerning matters that were controversial but part of the national debate. “Many were views publicly expressed by Trump” and agreed to by the Tennessee voters who “overwhelmingly” voted for him in 2016, Morgan says. There were no accusations against him of biased conduct in the Manookian case or any other, Morgan claims.

Morgan was fired in December. He sued the board and chief disciplinary counsel Sandra Garrett, alleging he was unconstitutionally punished for Tweets that were made in his private capacity and were about matters of public importance.

Cause of Action: First Amendment.

Relief Requested: Damages, injunctive relief….

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Secrecy surrounds refugee program in Tennessee and in your state too!

This is an opinion piece published in The Tennessean yesterday and posted in its entirety here with permission from the author.

Barnett is an expert on the UN/US State Department Refugee Admissions Program and its history having followed its progression for literally two decades.

From The Tennessean:

Before the Refugee Act of 1980, refugee resettlement was the work of true sacrificial charity, where sponsors and charities committed to maintaining and supporting the refugees with housing and employment, even medical care if needed. There was an explicit bar to the access of welfare benefits. The sponsor was responsible for all costs. This helped to guarantee assimilation and is how we absorbed post-WWII refugees, those fleeing communist oppression in Eastern Europe, the Hungarian Revolution and other upheavals.

Don Barnett 2

Don Barnett

With the 1980 Refugee Act and related laws, the charities morphed into money-making federal contractors whose main job is to link the refugees with social services and welfare benefits. The 1980 act made all welfare available to refugees upon arrival — for life, if eligibility is maintained.

Originally, the Refugee Act included three years of federal refugee cash assistance and medical insurance. As well, state governments were reimbursed for their expenditures on welfare used by refugees, such as Medicaid (TennCare), for three years. By 1991, reimbursement from the feds for state welfare expenditures had been completely eliminated and the three-year period of refugee cash and medical assistance for refugees was limited to eight months.

According to the most recent government data, even those refugees in the country for five years are largely dependent on taxpayer largesse. Sixty percent of this group receives food stamps and 17 percent are on the cash welfare program Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). A nationwide U.S. Department of Health and Human Services study shows 44 percent are still in Medicaid and 29 percent of families who have been here for five years have one or more members on the lifetime cash welfare program Supplemental Security Income (SSI).

This gives an idea of the costs to the federal taxpayer and of the unfunded federal mandate placed upon state taxpayers by this program.

Because of the byzantine structure of Tennessee’s program, there is no way to get exact costs. Both the state refugee coordinator and state refugee health coordinator, who are supposed to represent the state and its taxpayers, are actually employees of Catholic Charities, the federal contractor whose income rises in direct proportion to the numbers of refugees resettled. Further, the salary for both of these positions is paid not by the contractor, but by the feds. How’s that for a conflict of interest?

In a healthy and open environment, information would be made available from these two sources, which would help in evaluating program success and program costs, such as use of TennCare by refugees, rates of infection with communicable disease and so on. Alas, because of incentives and disincentives built into the refugee coordinators’ jobs, the best strategy for them is to withhold information.

Secrecy surrounds all aspects of the program. We have no idea what it is costing Tennessee. Statistics about medical conditions among refugees are secret. Even the numbers of refugee arrivals proposed for next year is a secret. And when arrival numbers are reported, after the fact, they are routinely reported as lower than actual numbers by conveniently neglecting to include categories of resettlement that are not official refugees, but that have the same entitlements — and benefits to the contractor — as refugees.

Orwellian use of language allows for absurd claims about refugee economic integration. For instance, refugees are considered officially “self-sufficient” even if they receive every federal welfare benefit except TANF. Refugees in temporary jobs or training programs are counted as “employed.” An unpublicized federal audit from 1999 obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request found that Memphis Catholic Charities was dropping refugees off at a day labor lot and reporting them as “employed.”

It was never intended that the sponsors, known as “Voluntary Agencies,” would be purely federal contractors with all the behavior, untoward incentives, money and influence peddling that this brings. Yet, that is what we have today.

There would be no issue with this program if refugees were resettled in the traditional way America has always absorbed refugees. As long as the current resettlement model persists, it is imperative that Tennesseans have a say in how state resources are used. The state attorney general should proceed with SJR 467 challenging the federal government’s presumed authority over state resources.

We have previously posted op-eds by Don Barnett or written about his work, click here for posts mentioning Barnett.

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