AG Jonathan Skrmetti Discusses Tennessee's Trans Case at SCOTUS

by Rod Williams, Dec. 11, 2024- The above is an informative and insightful video. Sarah Isgur of The Dispatch interviews Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti. They discuss Skrmetti's bio and how he became Tennessee's Attorney General and the scope and functioning of the office.

The bulk of the discussion is devoted to discussing the case just recently heard before the Supreme Court in which Tennessee's law banning gender transition medical treatment for minors was challenged. The nuances and complexity of the issue are explored. Tennessee is one of about 26 states that have placed restrictions on things like gender blockers, hormone treatment and surgery for minors for the purpose of sex reassignment. Skrmetti is optimistic Tennessee's law will stand. Also, this court case will likely be quite influential with various concurring opinions. 

Sarah then talks to David French. French is an opinion writer for the New York Times, and an attorney who has a long history of defending religious liberty. He has a history as a conservative legal activist and pundit but is a Trump critic and has fallen out of favor with many in Trump world. As you may know, he is a resident of middle Tennessee. I have had the privilege of taking a class taught by French at Lipscomb University. He is one of my favorite conservatives of the current era. 

The French segment is informative. I learned something. He clarifies the importance of the different levels of Judicial scrutiny. The three levels of scrutiny are strict scrutiny, intermediate scrutiny and the rational basis scrutiny. He breaks it down and explains it and how this applies and favors Tennessee in the Supreme Court case challenging the Tennessee bill protecting minors. 

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Tennessee Bureau of Investigations: Venezuelan gang in every major city in state

By Bethany Blankley, The Center Square contributor, Dec 8, 2024 - At a state budget hearing last month, the director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations, David Rausch, reported to Gov. Bill Lee that a violent Venezuelan prison gang, Tren de Aragua (TdA), is operating “in all of our major cities. They are running human trafficking operations, that’s where they start. We are now talking with our peers throughout the country that they have a pathway to more violence.”

In response, Gov. Bill Lee, an ardent supporter of border security efforts, issued a statement on X saying, “The border crisis is exactly why Americans voted for change. It’s not political – it’s about safety & security. TN will support @realdonaldtrump as he secures our border while delivering key resources for @TBInvestigation to stop illegal criminals from operating in our state.”

Tennessee has long partnered with Texas’ border security mission Operation Lone Star. Earlier this year, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott declared TdA a foreign terrorist organization and Texas Department of Public Safety began creating a database to identify TdA members, characterizations, and arrests. No such database currently exists at the local, state or federal level.

TdA members are known for violence, and have been accused of murder, kidnapping, extortion, bribery and human and drug trafficking, and linked to more than 100 law enforcement investigations nationwide, The Center Square has reported.

In Texas, they’ve been connected to ATM and bank thefts, car jackings, execution style murders and assault of women and children, The Center Square has reported. Texas law enforcement officers have arrested more than 3,000 Venezuelan illegal border crossers; more than 200 are wanted, Abbott said. Multiple agency arrests are occurring in major Texas cities involving kidnapping, murder, drug and human trafficking.

TdA crime has escalated nationwide after more than one million Venezuelans were reported illegally entering the country under the Biden administration, The Center Square exclusively reported.

Rausch has been sounding the alarm after TBI has been involved in operations involving TdA arrests over the past year.

Ahead of Thanksgiving, he announced a joint investigation involving the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office, the Chattanooga Police Department, the state’s Human Trafficking Task Force and Homeland Security Investigations that resulted in the arrest of four men, including a TdA member. They were allegedly involved in a sex trafficking ring using a local hotel. The confirmed TdA member is also suspected of committing violent crimes in Chicago and New York City, TBI said.

When announcing the arrest, Chattanooga Police Chief John Chambers said, “I want to make sure it’s crystal clear that CPD does not have issues with our Latino community members in Chattanooga, CPD and its officers are focused on criminal activity not ethnicity.”

What makes TdA “different is they do move about,” Rausch said. “They remain transient until they get comfortable. If they get into an area where they feel like they are able to operate without impunity, then they will start to dig their heels in, as we have seen in some of the other communities. What we’re trying to do – and my purpose was, in introducing this information – was to ensure that all of policing in Tennessee understands we’re not going to let them get their foothold in Tennessee.”

In March, TBI announced that an investigation into a multinational criminal organization linked to human trafficking in Middle Tennessee led to the arrest of a second alleged trafficker in Murfreesboro. TBI worked with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Homeland Security Investigations, Metro Nashville Police Department, and the United States Marshals Service to make the second arrest.

The investigation began last fall after TBI Human Trafficking Unit special agents uncovered a trafficking operation that allegedly lured women from Central and South America to the U.S. and forced them into commercial sex acts to pay off their debt to get to the U.S. One of the alleged traffickers was arrested last year.

Rausch’s warning prompted several local jurisdictions to release statements. The Metro Nashville Police Department said, “This police department is well aware of Tren de Aragua and the criminal activity associated with its members. We have a heightened awareness for any such activity seen here.”

The Knoxville Police Department and Knox County Sheriff’s Office said they hadn’t identified TdA members but were closely monitoring their jurisdictions. Putnam County Sheriff’s Office said there was no indication that TdA members were operating in the county.

The Memphis Police Department confirmed TdA activity. It said, “There have been two incidents in Memphis regarding Venezuelan gang activities. In 2023, officers located graffiti in the Appling Farms Station area. Additionally, on November 19th, 2024, ICE ERO arrested Luis Alejandro RUIZ-GODOY, who had outstanding warrants through INTERPOL. He was transported to Louisiana for deportation. Investigators with the Memphis Police Department have been and will remain in contact with our local, state, and federal partners concerning any new developments with Venezuelan gangs.”

Chattanooga Police Department said “there was no evidence to indicate that the gang is actively operating in our city.” Two weeks later, TBI and CPD announced the multi-operation arresting sex traffickers, including a TdA member.

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House Republicans introduce bill to eliminate sales tax on groceries

By Kim Jarrett, The Center Square, Dec. 10, 2024- Tennessee Rep. Elaine Davis, R-Knoxville, has filed a bill that would remove the state's sale tax on groceries.

It's the second bill filed to end the tax. Democrats introduced a bill last month. The bills only remove the tax on food and food ingredients and not prepared foods, candy or alcohol.

Davis said her bill would not raise taxes or cause local governments to lose revenue. Local governments would have the option to impose a grocery tax.

"We have all felt the impact of rising food prices over the last few years, and working families have struggled to put food on the table as a result," Davis said. "Tennesseans know best how to spend their own money. Repealing taxes on essential items like food and personal hygiene products has been one of my top legislative priorities."

House Majority Leader William Lamberth, R-Portland, backs the bill. Senate Democrats called the Republican bill a "publicity stunt."

"Republicans have had control in Tennessee for 14 years and they didn't eliminate the grocery tax. Instead, they cut BILLIONS in taxes for the wealthy and big corporations," they said in a social media post.

Democrats introduced the bill during the 2024 session but it failed.

Lawmakers passed a bill that suspended the state's grocery tax for three months in 2023 that returned an estimated $272.8 million to the taxpayers.

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United States Supreme Court Hears Arguments in U.S. v. Skrmetti, Tennessee's ban on childhood gender-transition interventions.

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti

Press release, WASHINGTON, D.C., Dec. 4, 2027 – The United States Supreme Court today heard oral arguments in United States v. Skrmetti, a constitutional dispute regarding the authority of state lawmakers to protect vulnerable kids from risky and unproven medical practices.

The Office of the Tennessee Attorney General presented a robust legal and evidence-based defense of the State’s legislative response to the recent explosion of childhood gender-transition interventions. The law at issue restricts the provision of irreversible medical interventions to minors with gender dysphoria—a psychiatric condition marked by mental distress from a conflict between a person’s sex and asserted gender identity. 

“We are here defending Tennessee’s law protecting children from irreversible and unproven gender transition procedures,” Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti stated. “Tennessee’s General Assembly reviewed the medical evidence, as well as the evidence-based decisions of European countries that restricted these procedures, and ultimately passed this bipartisan law prohibiting irreversible medical interventions.  The plaintiffs in this case are asking the Court to take the power to regulate the practice of medicine away from the people’s elected representatives and vest it in unaccountable judges.

Challengers claim the Tennessee law’s prohibition of the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for the purpose of “gender transition” discriminates based on sex and transgender status, which they say is a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause. Tennessee argued that the law presents an across-the-board rule that represents a reasonable exercise of the States’ longstanding authority to regulate the practice of medicine within their borders.

"Our arguments were ultimately about constitutional clarity and common sense," said Attorney General Skrmetti. "Our Founders guaranteed States the right and responsibility to protect children, regulate the medical profession, and independently evaluate the evidence of the risks and benefits of practices to be regulated. We cannot allow ideology to override medical evidence at the expense of our right to self-government and our duty to protect our children."

To read a copy of Tennessee’s filing at the Supreme Court, please click here.

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Why Harris Lost and Trump Won

by Rod Williams, Nov. 26/2024 -It has been a little over three weeks since the election and Democrats have been engaging in a lot of Monday-morning-quarterbacking, soul-searching, second-guessing, and finger-pointing, trying to figure out how Kamala Harris lost the election. Other pundits and observers are also trying to explain the election outcome. 

Much of this analysis deals with strategic and tactical decisions of the campaign. I think little of it
matters. Democrats have always believed that the "ground game" and knocking on doors and making the phone calls and the personal postcards is how to win elections. Democrats were better than Republicans at doing that. l am not so sure people want a stranger knocking on their door or another phone call anymore. It appears that big rallies and dominating social media may be the way to win in the modern era. However, I am not convinced that that was a significant factor in the campaign.

If the outcome would have been close, then questions of whether or not Harris should have gone on the Joe Rogan show would matter. She lost by such a large margin, that I don't think it matters. Should Harris have chosen Josh Shapiro over Tim Walz as her VP pick? I don't think it really mattered. I think Shapiro would have been a better choice under normal circumstances. However, the Democratic electorate was not ready for a Jewish VP at a time when pro-Palestinian sentiment was running high in segments of the Democrati Party coalition. Facing down antisemitic Arab Americans and college students would not have been a distraction for the Harris campaign.

One of the opinions that I think does have merit is that Joe Biden should have announced he was not running for reelection much earlier and the Democratic Party should have had a primary. I still think Kamala Harris would have ending up being the nominee. The Democrat Party was not going to pass over a Black female who was the Vice President for someone else. However, a primary would have had the benefit of letting the public get to know Harris better. She would have had longer to come up with a decent answer as to why she flip-flopped on so many issues. She would have had a better chance to define herself and decide what she really believes. I am still not convinced that it would have made a big difference.

One of the most ludicrous conclusions I have heard some Democrats come up with is that President Biden should not have resigned, and the Party should have stuck with him. Granted few people have said that but some have. After the June debate it was clear that Biden was not up for the job.  I think Trumps victory would have been an unprecedented landslide, had Biden not stepped down. If Biden was not president, he would probably be in an assisted living facility. His cognitive decline could not have been hidden from the American people. I think it is almost criminal that his condition was hidden from the American people for as long as it was. His handler could not have kept it hidden throughout the campaign. 

Another conclusion that some Democrats have reached is that the campaign should have gone full-Bernie. Or some have expressed it as the party should have conducted a populist campaign. Maybe. The public does not understand economics, and everybody likes free stuff. As it was, the Trump campaign promises were estimated to add twice as much to the national debt as was Harris' campaign promises. Harris could have been more irresponsible than Trump and promised even more free stuff than Trump. 

Along with promising more free stuff, the campaign could have ginned up resentment of rich people. The campaign could have convinced the poor and the middle class the reason they were bad off is because someone else was better off.  Maybe that campaign would have worked better than Harris' more moderate campaign. I am not sure Americans are ready to have their private insurance taken away from them however, but I think "making the rich pay their fair share," could have resonated. The problem with this approach is that a populist campaign does not mesh well with a campaign of wokeness and identity politics and the more socialist of the Democrats are also the most woke. A populist appeal has to be framed as the people against the powerful. With identify politics there is no people but various slices of the people. I don't think the Democrats could have pulled off a populist appeal. 

One criticism of the Harris campaign is that it was unfocused and never found a theme.  The campaign started out as a campaign of joy and Republicans are just weird. For a while it seemed to be a campaign about abortion rights. It then switched to a campaign of Trump is a fascist and maybe America's next Hitler and this is a campaign to preserve American democracy. I agree the campaigned was unfocused, but I don't know that being focused on any one message would have worked. There are reasons much of the Harris campaign did not resonate. I am not sure improved messaging would have helped.

Another criticism of the campaign that I think has merit is that Harris lacked authenticity. While I think it may have merit. I think given who she is, it would have been hard to fix. If you are inauthentic, it is hard to switch to being authentic.  She never seemed at ease talking to people. There was the issue of her using a different accent depending on her audience. I understand why she did not go on Joe Rogan. Rogan is not a tough interviewer. He does not grill but simply has conversations. I am sure Rogan would have asked her about her about her flip flops on policy issues and she never developed a convincing answer. She could have said things like, “You know, in retrospect, maybe the taxpayers shouldn’t pay for gender-transition surgeries for detained immigrants and federal prisoners.”  She could have, but would not. She would not have been able to explain why she was wrong on so many issues then and what led her to change her mind. She seemed to me to be unable to be spontaneous and real. It seemed to me like she struggled to keep up a facade of a moderate.

From her 2016 campaign to her 2024 campaign, she went from favoring Medicare for all to a more centrist position. She went from opposing fracking to not opposing it. She was a strong supporter of the Green New Deal and then moved to the center. In 2016 she favored decriminalizing illegal border crossings. She went from that position to supporting the border deal that failed in the Senate, which is considered one of the toughest, bipartisan immigration measures in many years. As a senator, Harris was a co-sponsor of legislation that called for increasing zero-emissions vehicles and ultimately phasing out gas powered vehicles by 2040. 

In the campaign she said that none if those were currently her position. She never said why. She needed to explain what epiphany had occurred to cause her to see the light. She failed to do so. I think that was a factor in her campaign and why many did not like her, but even that, I don't believe was the deciding factor. I think most of the strategic and tactical analysis of why Harris lost is either just wrong or not significant or something that could not be corrected. 

A factor that I think may have been pivotal was Trump getting shot. When he rose from the ground with blood streaming down his face, raised his fist and screamed, "Fight! Fight! Fight!", that may have been the moment Trump won. The picture could have not been more dramatic. I suspect that is the moment some wavering Republicans were brought back into the fold and some young 'bros' became Trump voters. 

I think an important factor in Trump's win was policy and policy favored Trump. The two largest issues were immigration and the economy. On immigration, Biden should never have reopened the border and reversed Trump policies. Eventually he reimposed some of the Trump restrictions and brought down the rate of border crossings, but the country had already been flooded. It was too little, too late. I am not going to elaborate on the complexity of border policy hear and how Trump stopped Congress from passing a good bipartisan border bill. The important thing is that the people wanted illegal immigration brought under control and they believed Trump would do it.

On the economy, people believed the economy was much better under Trump than Biden and it was. Most people are pretty much ignorant of economics, but they care about the price of a gallon of gas and a dozen eggs. By the time of the election, we had a low unemployment rate, and inflation had been brought down to almost the 2% target. It didn't matter. There is a lag time between good news and people feeling it. There is also a lag time between economic policy and the effects of that policy. Often things like employment rates, and the size of the deficit, and inflation are the results of previous policy; not current policy. That is just the way it is, but in this case, it benefited Trump.

One policy issue that was supposed to benefit Democrats was the abortion issue. One would have thought it would have benefited Harris but it did not. In several states where a ballot initiative liberalizing abortion policy was on the ballot, abortion won but so did Trump. Most people are not single-issue voters, and they are not as ideological consistent as are politicians. 

An issue that one would have thought would have favored Harris and overwhelmed all other issues was the threat to democracy. For the first time in our history, we had a candidate who had attempted a coup, and who in his next term said he may suspend the constitution. That did not matter. Why? 

I think there was a foundational reason Trump won, more important than strategy or tactics or policy. I contend the reason Trump won is that Americans are sick and tired of wokeness. I think wokeness is much more than the dictionary definition of "a state of being aware, especially of social problems such as racism and inequality." Wokeness consist of DEI, political correctness, affirmative action, cancel culture, and an attitude of superiority and self-righteousness. 

Tennessee Democrat Party showcases its gender fluidity ideology in every
communication. This is from Jan. 14, 2022

Wokeness is divisive identity politics in which the population is divided into aggrieved groups based on race, gender, or sexual orientation, or other factors and each group is empower by being powerless and playing the victim.  Wokeness judges people by the color of their skin rather than the content of their character. I think identity politics only plays well to a small but vocal constituency. Many people in those groups do not embrace the identity. People of a Latin American background, as an example, were told they were "Latinx," and they didn't feel it. 

Wokeness is the deliberate conflation of legal immigration and illegal immigration and telling people that if they believe a country has a right to determine who may become a resident of their country that they are a bigot. 

Wokeness is approvingly watching BLM rioters topple statures, burn buildings, spray paint monuments and anything else within reach, burn police cars, and block interstates, and telling those who believe the lawless behavior should be prohibited and punished that they are racist, and we must understand the rage and be supportive of the behavior. 

Wokeness is saying that a child who decides he wants to be of the opposite sex is to be encouraged in his delusion and even advocating he has a right to transition. It is calling genital mutilation and chemical castration, "gender affirming health care."  And, if one disagrees, they are denounced as "transphobic" and a terrible person.

Wokeness is putting ones preferred pronoun following one's name in a communication. Wokeness is hectoring people for using the wrong pronoun. Wokeness is making it a crime or a disciplinary offence to "misgender."

Wokeness is silencing voices that are not attuned to the same insight as the liberal elite. It is labeling opinions with which one disagrees as "hate speech." It is shouting down conservative speakers on college compass. It is ostracizing and marginalizing and denying a platform to people with the "wrong" opinions. It is illiberal attitude toward free speech. 

Wokeness is an arrogance and moral superiority and demonizing those with a different point of view. It is viewing those who are critical of or question climate change as no better than holocaust deniers. It is saying of people you may even know well, that if they voted for Trump then they might as well be a Nazi. 

It is calling people who vote for Trump, “garbage.” It is condescension toward white rural voters and people of religious beliefs or certain moral beliefs.

I did not vote for Trump in this last election. I think he genuinely is a threat to democracy. However, the term "fascist" has been thrown around so much that it has been diluted of all meaning. It doesn't stick. There is a member of our Metro Council who routinely calls people fascist and there are a lot of people like her. I personally know people who called George W. Bush a fascist. They have stripped all power from the word. People do not like being told they are sexist, bigots, fascist and no better than a Nazi. In response, I think their attitude becomes, "I'll show you. I will vote for the guy you detest." 

Tell a people long enough they are "deplorables," "garbage," fascist, sexist, homophobes, xenophobes and bigots and inferior to your enlighten self and they will not take it anymore and strike back.  

I have had people with whom I am close say the reason Harris lost is simply because Americans are sexist and racist. It that is the extent of their analysis and their conclusion, I think Trumpism has a bright future. 

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Trump Needs Better Vetters

National Review: Trump Needs Better Vetters
Me: You think?
Trumpinista: No he doesn't! RINO! Swamp creature!

The New Republic: Trump Is Skipping Most Important Step in Cabinet Vetting Process
Me: It is pretty obvious.
Trumpinista: Fake News! USA! USA! USA!

Washington Times: Trump’s top Cabinet picks need vetting
Me: It would seem that way, wouldn't it?
Trumpinista: I trust Trump! Fake News! USA! USA! USA!

MSNBC: Matt Gaetz's withdrawal exposes Trump's vetting weaknesses
Me: Yeah, you're right.
Trumpinista: Drain the Swamp! Fake News! Woke Commie! USA! USA! USA!

Washington Post:  Democrats and some Republicans question Trump’s Vetting Process. 

Me: Duh.

Trumpinista:  He is entitled to get who he wants! Fake New! USA! USA! USA!

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Your Favorite Mexican Beer Could get More Expensive Under Trump Tariffs and American Barley Farmers Pay the Price

 The Washington Post, Dec. 3, 2024 - Your favorite Mexican beer may get more expensive, if President-
elect Donald Trump carries out his threat to impose tariffs on Mexico.

Trump said last week he would slap a 25 percent tariff on goods from Mexico and Canada if they didn’t stop the flow of migrants and the deadly opioid fentanyl over their borders.

... American consumers would be hurt, too, according to economists. Tariffs are basically a tax on foreign goods; importers probably would have to raise their prices to compensate.

Mexico makes all kinds of things the average American uses. It manufactures 88 percent of the pickups sold in America; a 25 percent tariff could add about $3,000 to the price tag of that new Ford or GM truck, ... Mexico supplies around half of America’s imported fruit and two-thirds of imported vegetables, in dollar terms — tomatoes, berries, bell peppers, cucumbers. ... Most of the imported beer that Americans swig is brewed in Mexico. 

About 18 percent of all the beer drunk in the United States is imported, according to the Beer Institute, which represents the American beer industry. Mexico supplies roughly 4 of every 5 gallons. Last year, a Mexican beer, Modelo Especial, became the top-selling brew in the United States, in dollar terms. ... 

Take that Mexican beer. It might be made with barley from Idaho, Montana or North Dakota. Mexico doesn’t produce enough of its own barley for its booming cerveza industry. American farmers have happily watched their total exports of malted barley (one of the main ingredients in beer) roughly triple since 2000, to 318,673 tons last year. A whopping 97 percent of that went to Mexico. If Mexican beer in the United States becomes pricier — and sells less — that could wind up hitting barley producers. (read it all)

Rod's Comment: Trumpinistas respond, "Real Americans don't drink Mexican beer."

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The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly School Districts in Tennessee.

by Rod Williams, Dec. 3, 2024- Last week the Tennessee Department of Education released its 2024 District Accountability report on the quality of the Tennessee's public schools. This is an annual report required by federal and state law that puts each of Tennessee's 147 School districts into one of several categories. The categories are Exemplary, Advancing, Satisfactory, Marginal, and In Need of Improvement.

Under Tennessee’s accountability system, districts are expected to increase achievement levels for all students and demonstrate student growth across all student groups. Districts are assessed on their performance across six critical performance indicators measured through multiple pathways. The indicators include Grade Band Success Rates, rates at which students are Chronically Out of School, performance on the English Language Proficiency Assessment (ELPA), and Graduation rates. District accountability scores are calculated using a weighted average of the district’s scores across all indicators and student groups to determine a district’s designation.

The "in need of improvement" schools are those districts in which their overall score falls in the bottom five percent of all districts. These school districts are Decatur County Schools, Hancock County Schools, Hardeman County Schools, Humboldt City Schools, Johnson County Schools, Lawrence County Schools, Lewis County Schools, Perry County Schools, Sequatchie County Schools, and Tennessee Schools for the Deaf.

Knox County Schools and Hamilton County Schools are in the satisfactory category. Memphis-Shelby County Schools, and Metro Nashville Public Schools are in the advancing category. For a complete list of all school systems and what designation they receive, follow this link. 

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TN Dept of Ed Names the Best Tennessee School Districts

Press release, Nov. 21, 2024- Nashville, TN— Today, the Tennessee Department of Education announced school and district designations for the 2023-24 school year, including Reward Schools, Exemplary Districts, and In Need of Improvement districts. These designations are based on various performance indicators, including student achievement and growth. 

Across the state, 377 schools, spanning 97 districts, received the Reward School designation; 10 districts received the Exemplary District designation; and 10 districts received the In Need of Improvement designation. The complete list of district and school designations is available on the department‘s accountability webpage.

“I am thrilled to highlight the 2023-24 Reward Schools and Exemplary Districts for their dedication to fostering student learning and growth in their classrooms across the state,” said Lizzette Reynolds, Commissioner of Education. “This annual recognition is the result of our teachers, along with school and district leaders, who are committed to student success every day, and I commend each of you for your valiant efforts in supporting achievement for our Tennessee students.”

Each year, schools and districts are eligible for designations based on their overall performance across indicators that are essential to student success, including how they prepared students to be proficient (achievement), accelerated student learning (growth), encouraged students to attend school regularly (chronically out of school), prepared students for postsecondary success (graduation rate and Ready Graduate), and supported English learners acquiring language skills.

Schools are recognized as a Reward School when they demonstrate high levels of performance and/or improvement in performance by meeting objectives across performance indicators and student groups, and the Reward School distinction places significant emphasis on performance and improvement across all indicators from the prior school year. 

Districts are recognized as an Exemplary District when they receive an overall district performance score of 3.1 or higher on a 4.0-point scale across all performance indicators as referenced above. The following are the 10 designated Exemplary Districts:

Alcoa City Schools

Arlington Community Schools

Bells City Schools

Clinton City Schools

Collierville Schools

Dayton City School

Jackson County Schools

Lebanon Special School District

Milan Special School District

Van Buren County Schools

Reward Schools, Exemplary Districts, and In Need of Improvement districts were presented to the State Board of Education on November 22nd and approved. All designations can be found on the department’s accountability page.

For Tennessee Department of Education media inquiries, contact Edu.MediaInquiries@tn.gov. 

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The Hunter Biden Pardon Is a Strategic Mistake

by Tom Nichols, The Atlantic, Dec. 2, 2024- President Joe Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter is a done deal. The president has not only obviated the existing cases against Hunter; the sweep of the pardon effectively immunizes his son against prosecution for all federal crimes he may have committed over the course of more than a decade. This pardon is a terrible idea—“both dishonorable and unwise,” in the words of the Bulwark editor Jonathan Last—and, as my colleague Jonathan Chait wrote yesterday, it reflected Biden’s choice “to prioritize his own feelings over the defense of his country.”

But it was also a tremendous strategic blunder, one that will haunt Democrats as they head into the first years of another Trump administration. 

... Joe Biden has now provided every Republican—and especially those running for Congress in 2026—with a ready-made heat shield against any criticism about Trump’s pardons, past or present. Biden has effectively neutralized pardons as a political issue, and even worse, he has inadvertently given power to Trump’s narrative about the unreliability of American institutions. (read more)

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Joe Biden's Pardon of Hunter, Surrenders the Moral High Ground, Justifies Trump's Pardon Abuse.

by Rod Williams, Dec. 2, 2024 - Yesterday, President Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter, after promising he wouldn't do so. This plays into the hands of the Trumpinistas who believe the Justice Department and the FBI targets conservatives and that it targeted Trump specifically. It justifies, in their mind, Trump using the Justice Department and the FBI to target Trump's critics. It obliterates the argument that the Justice Department is objective and impartial.

When Trump apologist would argue that the Justice Department unfairly targeted Trump, Trump critics would push back and say, well what about Hunter Biden? If the Justice Department was partial and just a tool of those in power, Trump critics would argue, then how do you explain the Justice Department pursuing charges against Hunter Biden? 

They had no good answer. Now, they do. They can argue that the prosecution of Hunter was all for show and that it was Biden's plan to pardon Hunter after the election all along. 

Also, when Trump pardons the J6 insurrectionist or other criminals and anyone criticizes Trump's use of the pardon, Trump supporters can respond with, what about Hunter? 

Biden has surrendered any moral high ground Trump critics may have held. This is another example of Biden putting his own interest above the interest of the country, just as he did when he refused to step down and he ran for a second term. 

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Comrade Tulsi Gabbard’s Nomination Is a National-Security Risk

by Rod Williams, Nov. 25, 2024- Of all of the bad nominees for cabinet post in the new administration, none concerns me more than Tulsi Gabbard. 

Matt Gaetz was simply a jerk and an immoral scum bag and possible a rapist and unqualified, and probably would have politized the Justice Department. That's could have been bad. Anyway, he is gone. 

Hegpath is unqualified and has limited administrative experience. He could screw up America's military readiness by firing a bunch of generals who do not put loyalty to Trump over loyalty to the country. However, it takes a long time to change the culture of the military, and his damage, assuming he is confirmed, may be limited.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is an anti-vaxxer nutjob who could endanger the nation's health, especially should we have a national health emergency. Even if we do not have a new national health emergency, having him in charge of health could reduce the number of people who get vaccinated and we could see a resurgence of diseases that were virtually eradicated and people could die, especially young children.  Still yet, his tenure as Secretary of Health has less potential to damage the country than that of Tulsi Gabbard.

Tulsi Gabbard has been nominated for Director of National Intelligence, a position that oversees eighteen national security agencies. including the CIA. She could betray her country and there is reason to think she would. If she did not betray our country, she could harm our country. If she is the Director of National Intelligence, other countries may decide it is a risk to share intelligence information with the United States. This could advantage our adversaries. It is hard to estimate the damage she could do to our country and the world.

Below are links and excerpts from several articles explaining why Tulsi Gabbard is a national security risk.

Tulsi Gabbard’s Nomination Is a National-Security Risk

By Tom Nichols, The Atlantic, Nov. 13, 2024- Gabbard is stunningly unqualified for almost any Cabinet post ... She has no qualifications as an intelligence professional—literally none....  She has no significant experience directing or managing much of anything. ...

Gabbard ran for president as a Democrat in 2020, attempting to position herself as something like a peace candidate. But she’s no peacemaker: She’s been an apologist for both the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Her politics, which are otherwise incoherent, tend to be sympathetic to these two strongmen, painting America as the problem and the dictators as misunderstood. ...  Her views can seem both extremely left and extremely right, which is probably why people such as Tucker Carlson—a conservative who has turned into … whatever pro-Russia right-wingers are called now—have taken a liking to the former Democrat ... 

In early 2017, while still a member of Congress, Gabbard met with Assad, saying that peace in Syria was only possible if the international community would have a conversation with him. “Let the Syrian people themselves determine their future, not the United States, not some foreign country,” Gabbard said, after chatting with a man who had stopped the Syrian people from determining their own future by using chemical weapons on them. Two years later, she added that Assad was “not the enemy of the United States, because Syria does not pose a direct threat to the United States,” and that her critics were merely “warmongers.”

... Gabbard has every right to her personal views, however inscrutable they may be. As a private citizen, she can apologize for Assad and Putin to her heart’s content. But as a security risk, Gabbard is a walking Christmas tree of warning lights. If she is nominated to be America’s top intelligence officer, that’s everyone’s business. (read more)

How Tulsi Gabbard Became a Favorite of Russia’s State Media

By Steven Lee Myers, Jim Rutenberg and Julian E. Barnes, The New York Times, Nov. 18, 2024- In 2017, when she was still a Democratic member of Congress, Tulsi Gabbard traveled to Syria and met the country’s authoritarian president, Bashar al-Assad. She also accused the United States of supporting terrorists there.

The day after Vladimir V. Putin began a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Ms. Gabbard blamed the United States and NATO for provoking the war by ignoring Russia’s security concerns.

She has since suggested that the United States covertly worked with Ukraine on dangerous biological pathogens and was culpable for the bombing of the Nord Stream gas pipeline from Russia to Germany in September 2022. European prosecutors and U.S. officials say that sabotage was carried out by Ukrainian operatives.

Ms. Gabbard’s comments have earned her sharp rebukes from officials across the political spectrum in Washington, who have accused her of parroting the anti-American propaganda of the country’s adversaries. Her remarks have also made her a darling of the Kremlin’s vast state media apparatus .... according to analysts and former officials, Ms. Gabbard seems to simply share the Kremlin’s geopolitical views, especially when it comes to the exercise of American military power.

In Russia, the reaction to her potential appointment has been gleeful, ... “The C.I.A. and the F.B.I. are trembling,” Komsomolskaya Pravda, a Russian newspaper, wrote on Friday in a glowing profile of Ms. Gabbard, noting, positively, that Ukrainians consider her “an agent of the Russian state.” Rossiya-1, a state television channel, called her a Russian “comrade” in Mr. Trump’s emerging cabinet.

... “This war and suffering could have easily been avoided if Biden Admin/NATO had simply acknowledged Russia’s legitimate security concerns regarding Ukraine’s becoming a member of NATO, which would mean US/NATO forces right on Russia’s border,” she wrote on Twitter, now known as X, when the war began in February 2022.

A month later, she posted a video on the platform saying the United States was operating 25 to 30 biological research labs in Ukraine. She accused the Biden administration of covering them up and said they could release dangerous pathogens, though she stopped short of claiming the labs were making biological weapons, as Russia has falsely claimed.

... Vladimir Solovyov, a popular talk show host, called her “our girlfriend” in a segment in 2022. The program included an interview Ms. Gabbard did with Tucker Carlson in which she claimed that Mr. Biden’s goal was to end Mr. Putin’s control of the Russian government, according to Julia Davis, the creator of the Russian Media Monitor, which tracks Kremlin propaganda.

.. In some cases, she echoed story lines that Russia’s propagandists created, which the Russians then recycled on their own media as evidence that the conspiracy theories they had manufactured were true. (read more of this insightful article)

Wall Street Journal: Tulsi Gabbard vs. Trump’s First Term

Independent, Nov. 21, 2024: Nikki Haley issues scathing takedown of ‘Russian sympathizer’ Tulsi Gabbard and ‘liberal’ RFK Jr

The Economist, Nov. 24, 3024- Donald Trump and Tulsi Gabbard are coming for the spooks. ... Ms Gabbard’s Russophile tendencies are particularly jarring. “Democrats”, she complained in her book, “don’t want a peaceful relationship with Russia at all…How would their friends in the military-industrial complex make trillions of dollars from the fear they fomented in America and Europe by stoking the fires of the new cold war?” Some in the intelligence world believe that European agencies might start holding back human-intelligence reports or “sanitising” them of information that would previously have been shared.

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