Tag: tennessee

Tennessee House votes to ban kratom, bill now moves to Senate

The State of Tennessee is another step closer to becoming Kratom free.

State representatives voted Wednesday to approve legislation that would outlaw all forms of the substance, including a more potent derivative known as 7-OH.

The proposal now heads to the Senate.

Kratom is a plant-based substance from a Southeast Asian tree, often sold in gas stations and smoke shops. It has been at the center of a growing debate in Tennessee.

Supporters of the bill say the ban is needed to address safety concerns.

“This bill addresses the growing public concern and safety surrounding kratom,” Rep. Esther Helton-Haynes said during earlier hearings.

The legislation is named after a Chattanooga man whose family says he died after using kratom with other substances.

Lawmakers have pointed to risks, including possible links to overdose deaths and concerns about how the substance is marketed.

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Library Director Fired After Refusing To Remove Hundreds Of LGBT Books From Kids’ Section

When are these people going to learn to just leave the kids alone?

A Tennessee library board has voted 8-3 to remove its top librarian, Luanne James, after she refused to carry out an order to relocate hundreds of LGBT-themed books, Critical Race Theory (CRT) and feminist propaganda books from the children’s section of six Rutherford County branch libraries.

James was initially ordered to relocate books containing far-left ideology from the juvenile/children’s sections to the adult sections of libraries.  The board cited concerns that the books promoted “gender confusion,” contained LGBT themes/characters, sexual themes, feminist topics, DEI, social justice and related content.

The decision stemmed from a broader state review of thousands of materials prompted by a Tennessee Secretary of State letter and federal guidance on gender-related content. 

Actions within red states to transfer woke propaganda out of children’s spaces in school libraries and public libraries accelerated after viral complaints by parents who have read some of the horrific selections out loud at board meetings across the country.  Activist librarians have become a plague, disregarding the age and innocence of the children involved for the sake of a cult-like political ideology. 

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TN School Clears Record of Christian Teacher Punished for Refusing to Read LGBTQ+ Book to First-Graders

An elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee, has cleared the record of a Christian teacher who was punished for refusing to read a book about same-sex marriage to his first grade students. 

Teacher Eric Rivera declined to read the LGBTQ+ propaganda book to his young students, citing his Christian beliefs, and instead asked a colleague to read the book, Fox News reported. In response, KIPP Antioch College Prep Elementary issued a “final warning letter” in January to Rivera for declining to read the book, according to legal group First Liberty Institute. 

The following day, Rivera was asked to the principal’s office and threatened with firing, according to the report. School leadership reportedly told him he must maintain “fidelity” to the curriculum, “and a discipline letter was placed in his personnel file.” 

Before the incident, Rivera had no previous warnings or history of discipline, according to First Liberty. After facing pressure from school leadership, Rivera asked for a religious accommodation but was instead reassigned to a lab and technology position and then to a kindergarten class, per the report.

First Liberty sent a letter to the school on behalf of Rivera in February. After receiving the letter, KIPP Antioch agreed to clear Rivera’s record, First Liberty said on Monday. The school additionally will allow “all teachers to ask another employee to read materials objectionable to their faith.”

“We are pleased that the school has made the right decision by accommodating Mr. Rivera for his deeply held religious views,” Senior Counsel at First Liberty Cliff Martin said in a press release.  

“Our client is deeply devoted to teaching and is grateful that his record has been cleared and reasonable accommodations will be provided going forward,” he continued. 

The elementary school did not respond to the outlet’s request for comment by time of publication.

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Tennessee House Passes Bill Protecting Right to Decline Recognition of Same-Sex Marriage

The Tennessee House of Representatives approved legislation Thursday that would allow private individuals and organizations to decline to recognize same-sex marriages.

According to LifeSite News, House Bill 1473 passed by a majority of 68-24. All Republicans voted in favor, while all Democrats voted against it.

The bill does not challenge the legality of same-sex marriage.

However, it would exempt banks, medical institutions, and other private entities from recognizing what it calls “a purported marriage between individuals of the same sex.”

It also states that government officials may not face discipline or sanctions for “declining to celebrate or officiate at a marriage or commitment ceremony that falls outside the definition of marriage provided in this code.”

The measure challenges the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.

“Private citizens and organizations are not bound by the Fourteenth Amendment or by the Supreme Court’s purported interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment in Obergefell v. Hodges,” the bill states.

Republican state Rep. Gino Bulso introduced the legislation.

“It was the U.S. Supreme Court on June the 26th of 2015 that overstepped its bounds and invented this ‘right’ to marriage of individuals of the same sex, despite there being no support whatsoever in the language of the 14th Amendment for that proposition,” Bulso said.

The bill now heads to the Republican-controlled state Senate, where it is currently under review in the Judiciary Committee.

Bulso referenced Tennessee’s 2006 Marriage Protection Amendment, which defined marriage as between one man and one woman and passed with 81 percent support.

“The overwhelming majority of Tennesseans already affirmed what we have known for all of history: marriage is between one man and one woman,” he said in a press release.

“This legislation protects religious liberty in the Volunteer State by clarifying that private citizens can never be forced to recognize any other definition,” Bulso added.

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TN bill would allow death penalty for women who have an abortion

Two Tennessee Republicans are seeking to impose the death penalty on women who have abortions, requiring the same penalties for women “involved in the homicide of her own unborn child” as defendants charged with homicide.

An amendment drafted for House Bill 570/Senate Bill 738 that’s not yet been voted on would allow prosecutors to charge women who obtain abortions with fetal homicide, punishable by life imprisonment, life without parole, or in some cases, the death penalty.

Sponsored by Rep. Jody Barrett, R-Dickson, and Rep. Mark Pody, R-Lebanon, the bill was referred to the House Population Health Subcommittee and is not yet on the calendar to be considered.

The bill specifically removes legal protections for pregnant women currently in statute, and classifies harm done to an unborn child as equal to assault on a person “born alive.”

It would not apply to “a spontaneous miscarriage,” or to “unintentional death of an unborn child” after “undertaking life-saving procedures” to save the life of the mother and “to save the life of the unborn child.” No other exceptions are specified in the amendment text.

Retroactive prosecutions of women who were “involved in the assault of her unborn child” or “involved in the homicide of her own unborn child” before the bill goes into effect would not be allowed.

If passed, the bill would take effect July 1.

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Check Out How Nashville Jacked Up Property Taxes for One Local Business

Democrats love taxes. That’s no secret. In Virginia, the Democrats who run the state are pushing a massive slate of new or increased taxes on everything from gym memberships to Uber Eats. In New York, Mamdani is extorting Albany to either let him raise taxes on the rich and corporations or he’ll go after New York City homeowners and jack up their property taxes, too.

And in Nashville, the Acme Farm Store — one of the city’s landmarks — is facing closure after the city jacked up its taxes by $500,000 a year.

The shockwaves from historic property tax hikes in Nashville are no longer abstract. They are now threatening to erase some of the city’s most beloved and authentic landmarks.

One of the men most responsible for preserving Nashville’s past says he may be forced to walk away from it — unless City Hall intervenes.

You may not know the name Tom Morales, but you almost certainly know what he saved.

Morales helped preserve the Loveless Cafe, the historic Woolworth building and the iconic Acme Feed and Seed on Lower Broadway. Now, he says Acme — one of the last true anchors of old Nashville — is on the brink of closing because of a staggering property tax increase.

The original Acme Feed and Seed operated downtown for 56 years before closing in 1999. When Morales saw the building sitting vacant for more than a decade, he decided to bring it back — not as a theme park version of Nashville, but as the real thing.

The property taxes were $129,000 a year. They’re now north of $600,000 a year. That’s more than the company’s rent and net profits combined.

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Left-Wing Activists Ran Off the Normal People Who Knew How to Do Their Jobs

A story flying below the radar of most national media has been the drawn-out loss of electric power by tens of thousands of Nashville-area residents. About 200,000 Nashville Electric Services (“NES”) customers lost power in an ice storm on Sunday, Jan. 25. A week later, there were still over 30,000 customers without service, with temperatures continuing to dip well below freezing. The mounting death toll has included a 92-year-old man and a 79-year-old woman, both found dead in their frigid residences.

NES is a public utility that has been captured by woke leadership focused on DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) and ESG (Environmental Social Governance) rather than focusing on being a provider of reliable, affordable energy.

As documented by the Tennessee Star, NES produced a “Community Investment Report” with a heavy focus on green energy, sustainability, and DEI. The CEO, Teresa Broyles-Aplin, boasted that employees were put through over 100 “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Accessibility, & Belonging” training sessions. The report also identified “renewable energy, electrification, energy efficiency and demand response, resiliency, diversity, equity and inclusion, employee engagement and development, and greenhouse gas emission as the topics most important to NES and stakeholders simultaneously.” Maintaining a functioning electric grid is noticeably absent from that itemization.

One reason the storm was so destructive is that NES deliberately refrained from trimming trees along power lines. Just this past August, Ms. Broyles-Aplin boasted on a local TV station about the utility’s decision not to do preventative trimming, stating that “We care about the canopy. We have to live here too. I don’t want us out destroying the canopy.” Unfortunately, that canopy got covered in ice, and much of it fell on power lines, causing extensive damage. With NES apparently incapable of handling the core functions of a utility, nor capable of getting service restored, there is a growing clamor by state politicians for changes in how the inept utility is run.

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Third U.S. State Introduces Legislation Designating mRNA Injections as Biological Weapons of Mass Destruction

Tennessee State Senator Janice Bowling has just filed Senate Bill 1949, the “mRNA Bioweapons Prohibition Act,” prohibiting the manufacture, acquisition, possession, or distribution of mRNA injections and products—punishable as a Class B felony under Tennessee’s weapons of mass destruction statute.

Just last week, Arizona Representative Rachel Jones Keshel introduced HB 2974, amending existing statutes to designate modified mRNA injections as biological agents and weapons of mass destruction, and that their manufacture, possession, or distribution may be prosecuted as terrorism, carrying penalties up to life imprisonment if a violation results in death.

Credit to Dr. Joseph Sansone for drafting the “mRNA Bioweapons Prohibition Act,” now filed in three states.

There are now multiple legislators, international bodies, and peer-reviewed scientific publications declaring that mRNA injections constitute biological or technological weapons of mass destruction:

It’s only a matter of time before these dangerous products are outlawed.

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Tennessee Releases Staggering Stats on Migrant Crime

The office of the Tennessee District Attorneys General Conference has released its annual state immigration report revealing that in 2025, illegal migrants committed 2,183 violent offenses, including 41 homicides, 145 sexual offenses, 11 child rapes, and more.

Republican State Rep. Dan Howell said he was shocked by the report and called the data “really, really bad.”

“These are the criminals liberals want to defend while trying to defund ICE,” he pointed out.

“Forty-one Tennesseeans are dead at the hands of illegal immigrants and hundreds raped. This will not be tolerated in this great state and we will do more to keep you safe,” Howell added. (emphasis original)

The “2025 Immigration Report” released on January 30 is a required (TN Code § 4-1-425 2024) annual report from the state’s district attorneys general conference. The law directs them to “collect and analyze data from law enforcement agencies on the number of persons not lawfully present in the United States charged or convicted of a criminal offense in this state during the previous year.”

The crime statistics in the report come from data collected from the “Public Chapter 1008: Arrestee Citizenship Status – Not Lawfully Present or Unknown” forms created by the Tennessee District Attorneys General Conference. Police in Tennessee are required to fill out these forms after arresting a noncitizen.

The report found that a total of 21,648 charges were filed against illegal migrants among 11,344 cases between January 1 and December 31 of 2025, averaging nearly 1000 reports per month. However, there are likely even more because one county (Bledsoe) did not submit its data in time for the report to be filed.

Migrants representing a total of 119 different countries were cited in the reports where country of origin was obtainable.

The categories of crimes revealed a shocking toll suffered by the state’s citizens at the hands of illegal migrants.

Among the categories of crime, the report includes:

  • 2,183 violent offenses
  • 41 homicides
  • 1,592 assaults
  • 145 sexual offenses
  • 11 child rapes
  • 40 aggravated kidnappings
  • 2,920 DUIs
  • 5,318 cases of driving without a license or on suspended/or revoked
  • 966 Carjackings
  • 36 Felony firearms offenses
  • 66 Assaults on police or first responders

The “2025 Immigration Report” is now the second such report in compliance with the state law. The 2024 report, the first of its kind, collected data from only 73 of the state’s 95 counties and found that 2,719 non-citizens had been charged with crimes.

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Gavin Newsom Gets Dragged for Pledging to Send Winter Storm Resources to Tennessee While Fire Victims in California Remain Homeless

California Governor Gavin Newsom recently bragged on Twitter/X that he is sending aid to the state of Tennessee following the harsh winter storm.

Meanwhile, thousands of victims of the California wildfires that happened over a year ago remain homeless.

This is Newsom playing pretend. In his mind, he is already the President of the United States and he wants everyone to get used to the idea.

FOX 5 in California reports:

Gov. Newsom deploys California-based emergency team to Tennessee for winter storm aid

Governor Gavin Newsom has deployed specialized emergency management resources from California to assist Tennessee as the state responds to impacts from a deadly winter storm.

According to the Governor’s Office, a 30-member California-based federal Complex Incident Management Team has been sent to support “response and life safety efforts” following an icy snowstorm that created hazardous travel conditions, widespread power outages and emergencies across the state. Multiple deaths have been reported in connection with the storm.

“I’m thankful to the local firefighters, who are stepping up to help fellow Americans during their time of need,” said Newsom. “When disaster strikes, California answers the call to support our partners across the country. Deploying this Incident Management Team to Tennessee reflects a commitment to protecting lives and helping our neighbors respond and recover to extreme weather events.”

The deployment comes as large portions of the eastern United States recently faced heavy snowfall, ice accumulations and subfreezing temperatures, disrupting critical infrastructure.

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