Tag: tennessee

Governor poised to sign law making kids watch animated fetal videos from anti-abortion group

In Tennessee, whether parents like it or not, Republican Gov. Bill Lee is poised to sign a law that will make public school children watch an animated video on fetal development backed by an anti-abortion group, or some equivalent of it, after lawmakers in the state vaulted the legislation to passage.

The law, known as the Baby Olivia Act, first passed in the state’s House in March on a 67-23 vote and then sailed through the Senate last week, 21-6. The roughly three-minute animation created by the nonprofit anti-abortion group Live Action bills itself as a “Never Before Seen Look at Human Life in the Womb” and would be shown to public school children as part of the state’s family health curriculum.

Among other features in the video, it depicts sperm fertilizing an ovum and it is here that it declares: “This is the moment that life begins. A new human being has come into existence.” The animated video states that a fetus can recognize lullabies in the womb and depicts a purported fetus at 27 weeks gazing through a translucent womb while pressing its fingers against it. The shadow of the mother’s fingers press back.

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Tennessee State Senate Passes Bill Banning “Chemtrail” Spraying in Their Skies

The Tennessee State Senate has taken a definitive stance against the controversial topic of “chemtrails” by passing SB 2691/HB 2063.

The bill, which aims to ban the intentional release of chemicals into the atmosphere for geoengineering purposes, was sponsored by Representative Monty Fritts (R-Kingston) and Senator Steve Southerland (R-Morristown) and won approval in the Senate on Monday, The Tennessean reported.

The legislation is predicated on the claim that “it is documented the federal government or other entities acting on the federal government’s behalf or at the federal government’s request may conduct geoengineering experiments by intentionally dispersing chemicals into the atmosphere, and those activities may occur within the State of Tennessee.”

This new bill seeks to outlaw any such activities, stating that, “The intentional injection, release, or dispersion, by any means, of chemicals, chemical compounds, substances, or apparatus within the borders of this state into the atmosphere with the express purpose of affecting temperature, weather, or the intensity of the sunlight is prohibited.”

The passage of this bill marks a significant development in the ongoing debate over geoengineering and environmental manipulation. Proponents of the bill believe that it is a necessary step to safeguard the environment and public health from unregulated geoengineering practices.

The legislation is set to be enforced beginning July 1, 2024, indicating the urgency that the Tennessee Senate places on this issue for the “public welfare.”

Attention now turns to the House, where the bill is scheduled to be reviewed by the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee on Wednesday.

If the House passes the bill, Tennessee would become one of the first states to establish a legal framework explicitly prohibiting the spraying of chemicals for geoengineering purposes, potentially setting a precedent for other states to follow in addressing concerns around environmental and atmospheric manipulation.

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Tennessee bill would ban flags based on gender, politics, sexual orientation in schools

A new bill in the Tennessee General Assembly would ban public and charter schools from displaying certain flags on or in school buildings.

SB1722/HB1605 is sponsored by Senator Joey Hensley (R-Hohenwald-D28) and Representative Gino Bulso (R-Brentwood-D61) in their respective chambers. The bill caption states it “prohibits LEAs and public charter schools from displaying in public schools flags other than the official United States flag and the official Tennessee state flag.”

An amendment added to the bill further details what will and won’t be prohibited, the amendment stating those allowed will be a U.S. flag, the official Tennessee state flag, a POW/MIA flag, a flag of an Indian tribe, official city, county, or metro government flag, armed forces flags, and official school flags.

What will not be allowed are any flags representing political viewpoints, partisan, racial, sexual orientation, gender, or other “ideological viewpoint” flags.

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Tennessee Man’s Illegal Moonshine Operation Yielded 81 Quarts

A man in Johnson City, Tennessee, has been cited after law enforcement found an illegal moonshine operation.

Officials cited 36-year-old Jeremy Stines in the case and WCYB reported Monday that a tip led authorities to discover the operation that was apparently located inside a barn.

In a social media post, the Washington County Sheriff’s Office of Tennessee (WCSO) noted Stines was cited for manufacture of alcoholic beverages, possession of a still, and unlawful storage of liquor for sale.

The sheriff’s office continued:

Upon receiving the tip, Investigators conducted a premise check in the 200 block of Highridge Road. It was disclosed by Stines that there was in fact a still in the yard barn at the east end of the property, and verbal consent was given by Stines to search the building. The liquor manufacturing equipment, along with 81 quarts of product, were seized transported to WCSO.

According to Tennessee Code Annotated § 39-17-707, it is unlawful for any person to have possession or control of any still or other apparatus, or part of a still or other apparatus to be used for the purpose of manufacturing intoxicating liquor as prohibited by law. Possession of a Still is a Class B misdemeanor.

Manufacture of Alcoholic Beverages and Unlawful Storage of Liquor for Sale are both Class A misdemeanors.

Stines is scheduled to appear in court on March 5 regarding the case.

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Tennessee Says Residents Can’t Vote If They Have Lost Their Gun Rights

Tennessee, which imposes notoriously demanding requirements on residents with felony records seeking restoration of their voting rights, recently added a new wrinkle: Before supplicants who have not managed to obtain a pardon are allowed to vote again, they have to successfully seek restoration of their gun rights, a task that is complicated by the interaction between state and federal law. Given the difficulty of obtaining relief from the federal gun ban for people convicted of crimes punishable by more than a year of incarceration, this requirement would be prohibitive in practice.

If it is upheld by Tennessee courts, the new policy would essentially mean “there’s no way to vote” for people who were disenfranchised based on their criminal records, says Adam Ginsburg, a spokesman for the Campaign Legal Center (CLC), which has challenged Tennessee’s voting requirements in federal court. Even without the problem created by federal gun laws, CLC attorney Blair Bowie says, people convicted of drug felonies or violent crimes “will not be able to restore their gun rights” under Tennessee law. “It’s beyond the pale,” she says. But she adds that “it’s still an open question, because the Elections Division, which governs who can register to vote in Tennessee, clearly hasn’t really thought that through.”

The new requirement would further complicate a process that is already hard to navigate. “Tennessee has the most convoluted, harsh and poorly managed rights restoration process of any state in the country,” the CLC reported in 2022. Among other things, “Tennessee is one of only a handful of states that conditions the right to vote on payment of legal debt and the only state that requires a person to be current on child support to restore their voting rights.”

Tennessee’s obstacles to re-enfranchisement have had the sort of impact you might expect. “Over 450,000 citizens—accounting for more than 9% of the voting age population—are denied the right to vote because of past felony convictions,” the CLC noted. “Since 2016, less than 1% of post-sentence Tennesseans have gotten their voting rights back due to modern-day poll taxes and issues with obtaining a Certificate of Restoration,” which requires a court order.

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Tennessee police took part in multiyear sex trafficking conspiracy to shield a serial rapist — whose victims included children — in exchange for ‘hundreds of thousands’ in cash, lawsuit claims

Multiple Tennessee police officers took large sums of money from an accused rapist — whose victims included children — in order to protect him from criminal prosecution, a lawsuit filed in federal court alleges.

The shocking allegations are the latest wrinkle in the often dramatic, yearslong, multi-chapter effort to bring Sean Williams, 52, to justice.

Women in Johnson City had complained to law enforcement about the wealthy man’s allegedly predatory behavior since at least November 2019, according to the 85-page filing obtained by Law&Crime.

The defendant was ultimately arrested in April on wholly unrelated drug charges. In September, he was indicted on myriad state and federal child sex offenses. The apparently slow pace of those concomitant investigations was due, at least in part, by a local law enforcement conspiracy of cash and silence, the lawsuit claims.

“For years, Sean Williams drugged and raped women and sexually exploited children in Johnson City, Tennessee, and for years, officers of the Johnson City Police Department (‘JCPD’) let him get away with it,” the second amended complaint begins.

Filed by nine unnamed Does in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, the lawsuit alleges that “at least eight” reports about Williams drugging and raping women in his downtown apartment were swept under the rug by numerous police officers, who, instead, treated the business owner and sports car collector like he was “untouchable.”

”In exchange for turning a blind eye, JCPD officers took hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash from Williams, all while refusing to take meaningful steps to protect women and children in Johnson City and to stop his known sexually predatory behavior,” the filing continues. “JCPD was not only turning a blind eye to Williams’ crimes, but also engaging in a pattern and practice of discriminatory conduct towards women who reported rape and sexual assault by Williams.”

The lawsuit claims that Johnson City police, at the highest level, were knowing participants in a sex trafficking operation.

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Tennessee to Pay $125,000 to Settle Lawsuit by Man Arrested for Posting Meme Mocking Dead Cop

The state of Tennessee will pay $125,000 to settle a First Amendment lawsuit filed by a man who was arrested and jailed for nearly two weeks for posting a meme mocking a dead police officer.

Joshua Garton, 29, was arrested in January of 2021 and charged with harassment following a Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) probe into a pseudonymous Facebook post that appeared to show two men urinating on the tombstone of an officer who was shot and killed in 2018. A judge dismissed the charges a month later, and Garton filed a federal civil rights lawsuit alleging malicious prosecution, false arrest, and First Amendment retaliation.

In a settlement agreement filed earlier this month, two TBI agents and 23rd District Attorney General Ray Crouch did not admit any guilt, but they agreed to pay Garton to avoid further litigation costs.

“First Amendment retaliation is illegal, and law enforcement officials who arrest people for offending them will pay heavy consequences,” Daniel Horwitz, Garton’s lead attorney, said in a press release issued Monday. “Misbehaving government officials apologize with money, and Mr. Garton considers more than $10,000 per day that he was illegally incarcerated to be an acceptable apology.”

The TBI, Tennessee’s lead investigative law enforcement agency, launched an investigation into the offending Facebook post at the request of 23rd District Attorney Ray Crouch. Agents visited the officer’s gravesite and quickly surmised that the picture Garton posted was fake. It was in fact a doctored photo of the cover of “Pissing on Your Grave,” a single by The Rites, which originally depicted two men urinating on the tombstone of punk legend GG Allin.

Despite knowing that no one had physically desecrated the grave, the TBI continued its investigation, soliciting tips on Twitter about Garton’s identity. When it finally nabbed Garton, TBI put out a press release, complete with mugshot, announcing his arrest for “manufacturing and disseminating a harassing photograph on social media.”

As Reason wrote when Garton was first arrested, it was unclear how a dead person could be criminally harassed under Tennessee law, which requires that the subject be “frightened, intimidated or emotionally distressed.”

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Faith board member got $4.7M in TDOT work for firm formed days before Lee inauguration

A board member of Gov. Bill Lee’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, who filed to create a business three days before the governor’s 2019 inauguration, has landed $4.7 million in state contracts with the Tennessee Department of Transportation, contract records show. 

Aubrey Elizabeth “Libby” Phillips is the owner and founder of right-of-way mowing contractor, Big Al Mowing. Phillips holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Furman University, and prior to 2019 had no apparent experience in the mowing industry. 

Lee appointed Phillips — whose family contributed significantly to his 2018 gubernatorial bid — to the board of directors of his newly-formed Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives in 2020. All six members of the volunteer board of directors for the office contributed to Lee’s 2018 campaign.

Lawmakers approved a $1.2 million budget for the faith-based office this year, the first direct allocation of tax dollars the office has received since its creation in 2019. The board is made up of Lee’s political allies and has final authority to approve how that funding is spent.

Phillips and her family members donated a total of $8,250 to Lee’s gubernatorial campaign in 2018. Her grandfather, insurance executive Al Phillips, and his wife, Jere, each maxed out personal donations toward Lee’s initial gubernatorial campaign, contributing a total of $8,000, while Phillips contributed $250.

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Inside The Bizarre Murder Of Blair Adams — And Why It Remains Unsolved Decades Later

Blair Adams’ trip to Tennessee made as much sense as the way he died – very little.

To his family and friends in British Columbia, Canada, Adams wasn’t himself, acting oddly, and displaying paranoid behavior. On Friday, July 5, 1996, Adams withdrew almost all the cash from his bank account and the entire contents of his safety deposit box. Believing someone wanted him dead, Adams fled to the United States.

Adams decided to enter the U.S. that day by attempting to drive onto a ferry from Victoria to Seattle, but he was denied entry by immigration officials for traveling with large amounts of cash and valuables, and for lying about his criminal history over drug and assault offenses.

Avoiding his own apartment, Adams left his mother’s home on July 8, and three days later, the premonitions of his own death came true on a construction site thousands of miles away.

This is the bizarre story of the unsolved murder of Blair Adams.

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‘Teacher of the month’ who likes to ‘build relationships’ with pupils charged in student sex assault case

A Tennessee high school teacher who’d been awarded “teacher of the month” has been charged with statutory rape after allegedly having sex with one of her students. 

Casey McGrath, a 28-year-old geometry teacher at Chattanooga Central High School, was suspended without pay in March after a months-long investigation into alleged “inappropriate physical contact with a student” WTVC reported.

She was indicted on Aug. 14 and charged with “unlawfully and knowingly engag[ing] in sexual penetration with a person of at least 13 years of age, but less than 18,” according to court documents obtained by Fox News.

The indictment noted that she is “at least 10 years older than the victim.”

McGrath was arrested on Aug. 18 and is out on release after posting a $10,000 bond. She is scheduled to be arraigned in Hamilton County Criminal Court on Sept. 6.

McGrath — who had also taught at nearby East Ridge Middle School, according to school records. She had recently been nominated by Central High School students as “teacher of the month,” according to an online article in the school’s newspaper that has since been taken down.

The teacher told a student reporter that her favorite part of the  day was “getting to interact with students and build relationships with them” — despite challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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