Free Republic

FULL TITLE: Tennessee lawmaker grills Republican who claimed to remember being born while arguing for abortion law A Democratic state lawmaker in Tennessee grilled a Republican man who claimed to remember his own birth during a hearing on legislation to ban abortions in the state once a fetus’s heartbeat is detectable. The footage was captured during a hearing held by the state’s General Assembly earlier this week, in which backers and opponents to the legislation were able to discuss their positions on the bill with state senators. During the hearing, Hal Rounds, who was identified by a local Fox affiliate...

A jury found a grocery clerk guilty of killing a 17-year-old boy who ran out of the store with a beer he didn't pay for in Memphis, Tennessee, in a case that had sparked protests, authorities said. Anwar Ghazali was convicted of second-degree murder after a four-day trial, Shelby County District Attorney General Amy Weirich said Friday. "This defendant took it upon himself to be the judge and jury and the executioner over a $2 beer," prosecutor Lora Fowler said, according to CNN affiliate WMC. The shooting happened in March 2018, after Dorian Harris walked out of the Top Stop...

A Knox County jury on Tuesday declared Eric Boyd guilty in the 2007 murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom. The seven-woman, five-man jury had deliberated since Monday before returning its verdict of first-degree murder in the Knox County Criminal Court trial on Tuesday afternoon. The verdict carries an automatic life sentence for each of the two slayings. Judge Bob McGee will decide at a Sept. 18 sentencing hearing whether those two life sentences should be stacked one onto the other and what, if any, extra punishment Boyd should receive for the related crimes, including kidnapping and rape. Boyd is...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Tennessee lawmakers are considering a total abortion ban when the Senate Judiciary committee meets this week for its summer study. Lawmakers are hearing testimony today from more than 20 witnesses and debate an 11-page amendment to the "fetal heartbeat" bill . Watch below: (Live stream) If the changes are adopted, the legislation would ban abortion once a woman knows she's pregnant -- only if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade. Earlier this year, the Tennessee General Assembly tried to pass legislation that would ban abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detected . The measure...

Transgender son (Daughter)of strict religious missionaries reveals he was kicked out of his Christian college and left HOMELESS after the school found out he'd undergone top surgery A Tennessee student who had gender reassignment surgery when his parents were out of the country was expelled from his religious private school. Yanna Awtrey, 21, who was born female but now identities as male, was a student at Welch College, a four-year Free Will Baptist school in Nashville. However just hours after undergoing top surgery to remove his breast tissue in early August, he received an email informing him he had been...

HENNING, Tenn. (WTVF) — A massive manhunt is underway for an "extremely dangerous" man who escaped the West Tennessee State Penitentiary in Henning, Tennessee. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation issued a Blue Alert for Curtis Ray Watson. He is a person of interest in the murder of Tennessee Department of Correction Administrator Debra Johnson on Wednesday. The 64-year-old was a 38-year veteran employee of the state of Tennessee. Johnson was found dead in her home, which is on penitentiary property. Officials said they didn't know of any specific contact she may have had with Watson. Watson escaped from jail on...

Tennessee state senators are expected to consider a proposal that would ban abortions from the time a woman learns she is pregnant. It arises from the discussion of the so-called "fetal heartbeat bill" that has divided state lawmakers. The idea of the new legislation is to challenge abortion rights by taking an even more restrictive approach. The key word in next week's debate will be "viability" — a concept that for decades has been at the center of abortion laws. According to the courts, that’s the capability of a fetus to live outside the mother’s womb, generally thought to happen...

NASHVILLE — Nashville trauma surgeon Manny Sethi announced Monday he is running for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination to replace retiring Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee. Sethi, 41, made the announcement as former Gov. Bill Haslam continues weighing a bid for the 2020 GOP nomination. The physician is playing up his status as a "conservative outsider." "I am not a politician," Sethi said in an announcement video. "I'm a surgeon, an outsider. I'm a conservative and I support President Trump. Above all, I am grateful to God for a story that could have only have happened right here in Tennessee....

OBION COUNTY, TN — (snip)Last month, 48-year-old Mary Beth McManus was arrested and charged with three counts of statutorily raping a 16-year-old student in 2012. On Tuesday, McManus filed a lawsuit against her accuser who is now an adult, and the accuser’s girlfriend. The lawsuit says the student was a junior in 2011 at Obion County Central High School and taking McManus’ Spanish class. During that time, the suit says, McManus learned that the student’s parents had passed away and she was now living with her adult brother. The student told McManus that her brother treated her badly and that...

Three members of the National Rifle Association’s board resigned on Thursday August 1, 2019. Concerns about fiscal impropriety and mismanagement motivated the board members to resign from the organization. The three board members — Esther Schneider of Texas, Sean Maloney of Ohio and Timothy Knight of Tennessee — claimed that they were stripped of their committee assignments after they questioned NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre’s spending habits. BLP reported on concerns about LaPierre’s lavish spending a few months ago, which has drawn considerable criticism from members of the gun rights community.

Tennessee: "THE PEOPLE are the government, administering it by their agents; they are the government, the SOVEREIGN POWER"-Andrew JacksonSpanish Explorers Hernando de Soto, in 1540, and Juan Pardo, in 1567, traveled inland from North America's eastern coast and passed through a Native American village named " Tanasqui." A century and a half later, British traders encountered a Cherokee town named Tanasi. After the Revolutionary War, attempts were made to turn the area into the " State of Franklin" in honor of Ben Franklin. At the State's Constitutional Convention, it is said General Andrew Jackson suggested the Indian name " Tennessee."...

The last time Nashville’s mayor’s office made national news - a scant seventeen months ago - then mayor Megan Barry resigned after pleading guilty to felony theft relating to an extramarital affair she had with the police officer in charge of her security. This time it’s for a better reason. After David Briley served as interim mayor, a full-term election is now in progress. And that election is being shaken up by Carol Swain, a woman who is - of all things in traditionally Democratic Nashville, a blue stronghold in a red state - a no-holds-barred black, Christian Republican conservative....

House Democratic leaders were successful Wednesday in staving off a bid to impeach President Trump, but the effort is far from dead. A handful of Democrats added their names last week to the long list of lawmakers now endorsing an impeachment inquiry, growing the tally to more than a third of the caucus. Rep. Al Green, the Texas Democrat who forced last week's impeachment vote, is threatening to revisit the issue later this cycle. And Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), who had introduced articles of impeachment in the last Congress, says he plans to do so again, likely after the long...

. . . on the terms set out by Beto O’Rourke. Beto O’Rourke, the losing Texas Senate candidate who bootstrapped his way into becoming a losing presidential candidate, had a message for refugees who had come to America: Your new country is a hellhole. The former congressman told a roundtable of refugees and immigrants in Nashville, Tenn., last week: “This country was founded on white supremacy. And every single institution and structure that we have in this country still reflects the legacy of slavery and segregation and Jim Crow and suppression.” Just in case the newcomers were inclined to believe...

Approximately 3,000 strangers came to the funeral of a Vietnam veteran with no surviving family. On Wednesday, strangers from Florida, Tennessee, and Iowa reportedly drove to a Michigan funeral for 67-year-old Wayne Lee Wilson, who died on May 28. The former truck driver “proudly” served in the military from 1971 to 1977, including during the Vietnam War, according to an obituary from the Brown Funeral Home & Cremation Services. “He was passionate about helping his fellow wounded veterans and encouraged others to give to the Paralyzed Veterans Association,” read Wilson’s obit. “Mr. Wilson has no surviving relatives.” The notice stated,...

A former East Tennessee State University student who police said disrupted an on-campus Black Lives Matter rally while wearing a gorilla mask and dangling bananas on ropes was cleared of most charges Wednesday. A jury found Tristan Rettke guilty of one misdemeanor count of disrupting a meeting, and not guilty of two counts each of civil rights intimidation and disorderly conduct, according to NBC affiliate WCYB. The jury recommended a $500 fine. Rettke was arrested for attending the Sept. 28, 2016 protest on ETSU's Johnson City campus while barefoot, dressed in overalls, wearing a gorilla mask and dangling bananas tied...

A man was caught on camera getting dangerously close to a mama bear and her cubs while apparently attempting to pet them at a Tennessee national park. Paige Marple was at Cades Cove in Tennessee's Great Smoky Mountains National Park on July 13 at about 3pm when she captured the moment when a man got far too close to a black bear and nearly got attacked as a result. In the video, which Marple shared on Facebook, a man wearing a grey shirt can be seen holding out his hand while walking towards a trio of cubs that are following...

When you hear about an ultra in the state of Tennessee, it usually stirs up images of the famed Barkley Marathons. Though the state’s namesake ultra is the crown jewel of Gary “Lazarus Lake” Cantrell’s race series, extreme runners seek out the other challenges he offers once winter thaws out and southern heat moves into the Volunteer State. These include classics like Big’s Backyard and the Strolling Jim 40-miler. But only one race leaves state lines: The Vol State. With a 10-day cutoff, there’s a heavy emphasis on self-sufficiency. That doesn’t mean runners are on their own the entire race....

A thousand miles from Newark, in a tiny old school building tucked behind a Christian church, Cary Booker delivered the bad news. It was spring of 2011, and Omni Prep Academy, the Tennessee charter school co-founded and led by U.S. Sen. Cory Booker’s older brother, could no longer pay its kindergarten and first-grade teachers, the elder Booker announced, according to former teachers who were in the room. The financial woes weren’t a shock — when the school opened the previous fall it provided no books, no curriculum and almost no training for its novice educators, former teachers said in interviews...

Mandated by law, Saturday, July 13 is "Nathan Forrest Bedford Day" Tennessee with an annual proclamation issued by the governor each year. On Friday evening, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas slammed Governor Bill Lee for signing the announcement once again.  This is WRONG. Nathan Bedford Forrest was a Confederate general & a delegate to the 1868 Democratic Convention. He was also a slave trader & the 1st Grand Wizard of the KKK. Tennessee should not have an official day (tomorrow) honoring him. Change the law. https://t.co/XBgoRCBoI0— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) July 12, 2019 But why did he have to sign the...