Well, it’s looking like Trump is still ahead of Ron DeSantis in the polls, Tennessee Senator Jack Johnson's been exposed for some undisclosed affiliations between his campaign funding and some political action committees, so there's some potentially illegal stuff going on there. Also, apparently Hamilton County Schools have adopted a no grade below 50 policy that has already been present in Nashville public schools for awhile. All that and more on our podcast today, but hello, hello everybody and welcome back to the Tennessee Conservative’s Big Seven. My name is Adelia Kirchner and I'm one of the writers on staff at the Tennessee Conservative. And this week I am filling in for Brandon, who is currently traveling back from West Tennessee from a stop on the Let's Go Brandon tour. Now, if y'all are all like who's this random chick? And you really miss seeing Brandon's face, I have great news for you. OK, there are still three more stops on the tour this summer, so just go to our website and search Let's go Brandon for more information. Also, don't forget to subscribe to our free daily E newsletter. Just text news to 423-205-5600 and follow us on the social media platforms where we have not yet been shadow banned. That would include Twitter, Gab, Getter, Truth Rumble and MeWe.
Now, just a disclaimer here for those of you tuning in via video platform. Yes, I do have some very vibrant blue hair going on here. It's a bit of an experiment I'm conducting this summer. The hypothesis is this, if one dyes their hair blue, the ingredients in the hair dye overtime turn them into a liberal progressive. Now it seems possible that that is a very flawed hypothesis. It's probably going to fail because I'm still a diehard Christian conservative at the moment, but, uh yeah.
Anyways, let's get into our first big story of the week, OK? Despite overwhelming Tennessee support for Trump, Tennessee GOP invites DeSantis as keynote for the biggest fundraiser of the year. With the vast majority of Tennessee’s Republican representation at the federal level supporting former President Trump as well as the majority of Republican voters, it's a bit of a mystery that the invited keynote speaker for what is arguably the biggest fundraiser that the Tennessee GOP organizes is Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. In Tennessee, both Senators Marsha Blackburn and Bill Haggerty are part of President Trump's federal leadership team, alongside a large portion of the Tennessee congressional delegation, US Reps Diana Harshberger. Along with Mark Green and a few others, they all endorse Trump for the presidency. Also endorsing former President Trump is freshman Congressman Andy Ogles. Ogles said, “Our country is at a breaking point and I'm confident that President Trump is the leader we need to get America back on track.” A recent wide-ranging poll conducted by the We Can Center of Tennessee indicates that Tennessee residents support Donald Trump for president in 2024 by a wide margin. Trump holds a 49% point lead over Ron DeSantis, with 61% supporting Trump and 12% supporting DeSantis. Amongst Republicans, Trump also holds a 21 percentage point lead over Joe Biden in the state with 55% of the support compared to Biden's 36%. The Tennessee Conservative has reached out to Scott Golden, Tennessee State GOP chairman, for comment regarding the keynote speaker choice, but has not yet received a response. Now I have my own little predictions for the 2024 election in the primaries and all of that, but we won't. We won't go down that rabbit hole at the moment. But if you have your own predictions for the 2024 election or what you think is gonna happen in the primaries, please feel free to head to our comment sections on YouTube and Rumble. And, you know, just let us know what you think. I would be interested in reading what you guys have to say, but moving on to our second story of the week.
We have Official financial reports provide evidence of undisclosed affiliations between Senator Johnson's campaign and political action committees. A recent formal complaint lodged against the 2022 campaign of Tennessee Senate Republican Majority Leader Jack Johnson prompted further investigation into Johnson's campaign donations and the money ties to the involved political action committees. I'm so shocked, guys. Are you so shocked? You should be so shocked. But financial reports show that the campaign of Senator Jack Johnson and the campaigns manager, Ward Baker, potentially illegally coordinated with PACs - political action committees - during the 2022 Primaries this past July. Cross referencing of official financial reports indicate that Tennessee Reynolds American Incorporated PAC gave money to Senator Johnson's PAC but was not reported by Johnson, and that the funds landed in the Tennessee Conservatives PAC that spent money only to attack Senator Johnson's political opponent Gary Humble in the 2022 Republican primary. Now, just to be clear, it is called the Tennessee Conservatives PAC, but it is not our PAC. It is not the Tennessee Conservative Newspapers PAC, it's just a random PAC that exists. OK, a further interest is the fact that the 2021 annual year end report for Senator Johnson's PAC that would have shown this transaction.The Reynolds PAC was amended on April 1st, 2022. This was after Gary Humble had publicly announced that he would primary Jack Johnson for State Senate in Tennessee. It is illegal for a campaign to coordinate with a PAC without disclosing the affiliation. When the Tennessee Registry of Election Finance decided to audit the campaign of Gary Humble, who lost to incumbent Jack Johnson by a very narrow margin last year, there was no tangible evidence presented or complaints filed with an official complaint being filed in tangible evidence provided in that complaint, in that complaint. And here, Tennessee voters will see whether the registry will apply the same scrutiny to an incumbent. Those leaders campaign as they have, to, a primary challenger, so there is that. And I'll toss it to Brandon for a moment.
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Alright, next story. Oh this one's a good thing. We have gender affirming. Put that in quotation marks. OK. Gender affirming medical treatment ban goes into effect after first of its kind federal court decision. In a first for a federal court, a three judge panel of the 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals voted to reverse a Nashville Federal judges stay on a new law banning gender affirming medical treatment for minors. In Tennessee, two of the three judges voted to reinstate the law originally meant to go into effect on July 1st, to take effect immediately after Judge Eli Richardson of the Fifth Federal Circuit issued a partial injunction of Tennessee Senate Bill One. The opinion of the 6th US Circuit Court is a clear signal that the judges are not entirely convinced that the states ban is unconstitutional. Referring to similar debates happening in legislatures all across the United States, the judges just suggested that individual states are in the best position to decide whether minors should be able to access hormone treatments or surgeries that alter and remove healthy body parts, procedures that often lead to painful and permanent complications.The Tennessee Attorney General's Office has argued that there was never a need for an injunction against the new law in the first place due to the wind down period included in the legislation. This provision within the law allows for some existing transgender patients to continue receiving services until March of 2024. However, some providers such as Vanderbilt University.Medical care have threatened to cease providing any care to patients if the law is not stopped. Yeah, OK, sure. But per the court's order, the enforcement of the state's new law is pending a hearing and appellate ruling by September 30th, 2023. So there is that.
Our fourth story of the week, y'all is Tennessee Christian colleges are no safe haven from woke ideology. Now, speaking as a former college student, this is not a shock. Also, speaking as somebody who has lived in Tennessee and knows a little bit about Tennessee colleges, this is not shock. And also, speaking as somebody who has been to a Tennessee Christian college, this is not a shock. So let's just let's just remember that, OK, this is not surprising, but last month, the Tennessee Licensed Professional Counselors Association sponsored its annual Counseling and Therapy Summit at Trevecca Nazarene University. As with any university, the campus hosts events throughout the summer. However, this event was not the sort that you would typically find on what is known to be a conservative Christian college campus. This year's event included 47 breakout sessions. That's a lot, some with eye opening titles like Bark, The Kink, and Culture of Human Puppy Play. The program from the event promotes the session as an opportunity to understand the potential therapeutic benefit of BDSM kink expression and identify reasons a person might be inclined to participate in puppy play and familiarize themselves with resources for further investigation into the phenomenon of puppy play. So there's that. Just absolute disgusting. Terrible if. Yeah, that's what I have to say about that. Another session was titled Legi-slay-tion, you know slay, that Gen. Z Internet culture terminology. “Legi-SLAY-tion: Supporting Transgender and Gender Expansive Communities in Counseling” whose purpose was to explain to those attending “state legislation impacting transgender and gender-expansive people in Tennessee” and “identify trans-affirmative counseling practices for working with transgender and gender-expansive people in Tennessee.”
The Tennessee Conservative reached out to the college asking if they were aware of the conference would be presenting such activities, and if so, how that squares with the beliefs of the church, but no response was received. In 2021, the college added an Office of Excellence and Reconciliation, the goals being “providing diversity training for faculty and employees, assisting campus leaders and implementing diversity initiatives and advising departments and teams throughout the campus.” It continues, “our efforts also involve strengthening education programs to promote racial understanding and harmony, confronting racism through repentance, reconciliation and biblical justice.” The woke agenda that has long consumed public colleges and universities seems to have also embedded itself in faith-based institutions as well. So that's some discouraging news to say the least. But if you have been to a College in the last ten years, or if you know somebody who's going to college currently, then that should not come as a shock to you.
Guys, if you want us to continue to do this, if you want us to be around, you can't sit on the sidelines. Do go to TennesseeConservativeNews.com, hit that support button guys. I do this for free and if I can do it for free because all the thousands of hours that I put into this each and every year, for you to to donate 50 bucks a month or something like that is probably not too much to ask. Tennesseans that are conservative often wonder, how did our government get so corporately corrupt? Why are we in a state where we have to pass laws outlawing racism in our own government taxpayer funded schools? Why do we have institutions and politicians that claim to embrace our ideology while trying to absolutely destroy the Republican platform at the highest levels? And it is because conservatives tend to sit on the porch and they complain. And they they they make noise about stuff and they post on social media and they consume lots of Fox News and OWN and all that stuff. But when it comes to actually getting involved at the local and state level, where you can make a difference, where you get a huge return on investment for your dollars, we just sit on the sidelines. That's why we will not have a state and a country that will be as free for our grandkids and kids as what we have now. You heard it here first, I hate to report the news in advance, but it looks like that's where we're going. And the way to stop that is to go to TennesseeConservativeNews.com/support. Or you can mail your checks. We've got a new mailing address. OK, we've got a new mailing address. Let's see who is the first person to send a donation to the new mailing address, I would be curious. That'll be the the diehards, that are listening. PO Box 625 Signal Mountain TN 37377, that is PO Box 625 Signal Mountain TN 37377. Gosh, I hope that's the right PO Box. Let me look. That's it. I can't believe I got it. Reason, why are we changing our address? I am in the process, although it will take awhile, of selling my building at the old address and we will be sending out information to everyone who is a regular donor by mail so that they can change those addresses over. I appreciate your patience during the transition. And if you give any amount, any amount whatsoever, drum roll please… We will send you this Stop Feeding the RINOs bumper sticker. We will also send you this Don’t California My Tennessee bumper sticker and we will send you a directory of all your state Senators and Reps. If you give, hold on a minute. If you give $50 or more, we will send you this Stop Feeding the RINOs tumbler. Stop Feeding the RINOs and we will send you this proud Tennessee Conservative Koozie. You can keep your drinks hot or cold all summer long and know that the money you have given will go further and do more than anywhere else you can put it. You know why? Because I don't take any money out of this thing. So that means every dollar that comes into it exclusively and only goes toward getting the news out there. And it's the type of news that really needs to get out there, not the same news that you'll see everywhere else, which does very little to advance conservative values, and in fact usually works exactly the opposite. Don't leave us out here without some covering fire. Don't leave us out here without some supporting troops. You are those troops send in the Calvary by going to TennesseeConservativeNews.com/support.
All right, y’all, next one is Republican Reps prepare for special session with mental health as a focus, but at what cost? Representative Jason Zachary has indicated that coming into the special session slated for the middle of August and then immediately adjourning would be a mistake. Zachary indicated that maybe this would be an opportunity to focus on mental health issues. In the state's most believe that addressing mental health issues in the theoretical is all fine and well. But if there isn't a specific care taken how the issues are addressed in the practical, there can be serious implications in ways many people would not have considered. If you live in Jefferson County, what happened there last year could have the potential to become the reality for every county in the state of Tennessee. Last year, Jefferson County Schools contracted with a company called Allied Behavioral Health. This contract was for a dozen or so masters level counselors to be provided office space and receive referrals for children in their district for mental health counseling for all ages that attend the public schools in that district. The organization is treating as many as 700 students and received a total of $200,000 to cover deductibles and copays for students whose insurance would then be billed for the remainder of the treatment. The reason for the concern is that, based on a review of Allied Health and its social media, as well as their website, they have a devotion to supporting and upholding the LGBTQ plus agenda that the alphabets that I can't say the LGBTQ plus agenda, as well as the social justice DEI narrative that pervades our current culture, DEI diversity, equity, and inclusion. Last year, local media outlets and local grassroots organizations sounded the alarm about what was happening in Jefferson County. All of these efforts led to the Jefferson County GOP requesting that the School board remove Allied and all their counselors from the schools in Jefferson County. The school board elected to keep Allied in their district, but due to the response from concerned citizens and the pushback that resulted, Allied scrubbed both their website and all of their social media of any references to LGBTQIA plus related issues such as gender, sexuality or pride. So if you were wondering what a focus on mental health might look like in the state of Tennessee, Jefferson County is a perfect example. So yep, that's about right there. There's lots of things that sound good, but they're not so good when it comes to the execution.
Our next story is Nashville's No Grade Below 50 policy implemented in Hamilton County Schools. Public schools in Hamilton County seem to have adopted a Metro Nashville Public Schools grading system that requires teachers to assign students a minimum grade of 50, regardless of the grade they earned, even if that student has been caught cheating or has not properly attempted to submit assignments. According to MNPS grading procedures, a 50 is the lowest quarter grade a student may receive and a 50 is the lowest exam grade each student may receive. The grading procedures document goes on to state that for high school state assessments taken to middle school, assign a grade of 50 as 15% of the semester grade to students with an unexcused absence who refused to take the test, or who have a nullified score due to cheating. So, you know, if you get caught cheating, don't worry about it. You're still going to get 50. There's no threat of a zero. You know it's fine. The same instructions apply to the grading procedure for grades nine through 12, including high school credit courses taken in any other grade level. Now, Hamilton County School District has also adopted this policy, and in October of 2022, teachers were informed that due to changes in the grading scale the base grade had been updated for overriding quarter one grades. Some teachers were then instructed by e-mail and via an end of semester checklist to put the students actual score in the comments. Because scores less than 50 must be overridden for each quarter, it seems that this no score below grading policy both raises the grades for cheating students where students that would otherwise get a lower grade and quite possibly makes the schools and school district look better, Hamilton County School Board member Larry Groen said. It damages grading integrity and lowers curriculum standards. Now that is a story that I had the pleasure of writing, but the not so much pleasure of finding out about. So you know, just be aware of that. That's what's going on in our schools. But all right, y'all, last big story of the week.
OK, TBI makes progress on sexual assault kit turn around times. A new report released by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation shows that the average turn around time for rape kit processing has decreased since last August. At that time it took an average of 45.4.Weeks for a sexual assault kit to be processed, and as of May, that time had dropped to 22.7 weeks. This decrease has been reflected at all three of the TBI's testing locations in Jackson, Nashville and Knoxville.The TBI says that the turn around time can vary based on a variety of factors, with some cases still taking several months to return, while expedited requests are processed within a couple of days. Additionally, the number of pending rape kits statewide has dropped from an all time high of 1005. As of last October to 476 in May. The September 2022 murder of Memphis teacher Eliza Fletcher Fletcher was brought attention to the TBI's backlog of kits after it was found the man charged with her murder was linked to a 2021 rape with a ktd that had remained unprocessed in Jackson for almost a year. The TBI did receive federal funding that allowed them to send 858 kits to Florida for testing. They were also given funding for 50 positions in the TBI Forensic Services Division, forty of which have been filled. So I guess we just have to hope that the the Bureau of Investigation can keep that up and doesn't get back to a backlog of over 1000 kits that have not been processed. You know, since there's actually victims and you know, rapists, you know, some perpetrators out there connected to each one and there's like real life consequences to that stuff. But. Yeah, it's looking like that's about it, you guys.
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