Free Republic

NASHVILLE, Tennessee–Controversy is threatening to bring an early end to the regime of thirty-year-old Ryan Haynes, who was named chairman of the Tennessee Republican Party in April 2015. More than two dozen Republican members of the Tennessee House of Representatives signed an April 18 letter to Haynes demanding the immediate termination of his political director, Walker Ferrell, on the grounds that his wife, Taylor Ferrell, a paid consultant of the Tennessee Republican Party, is also being paid to defeat a number of incumbent Republican members of the House in primary challenges. The latest problem comes less than a month after...

GOP State Party officials caught in a huge conflict-of-interest. 27 GOP legislators call Haynes and staff on the carpet for “unethical” behavior. Wife of state GOP political director paid to defeat incumbent Republican officeholders. In the Pantheon of Dumb Political Operatives, these people deserve a special place of honor. Instead of us here at RTP rehashing today’s events, we provide our loyal readers (both of ‘em) the actual letter, delivered of course by (more than) one of our Merry Band of Tipsters. Letter 1 letter 2 Whew! There is already major fallout over this, what with everyone scurrying to cover...

SEC members say GOP executive director making “veiled threats” against signers of letter. Brietbart News posts major national story on the controversy. The fallout over the crass conflicts-of-interest and “insider trading” by the ethically challenged state GOP staff and leadership is only just beginning. Baghdad Brent After over one-third of the House GOP caucus sent a scathing letter to Chairman Ryan Haynes about the corrupt arrangement between the party’s political director and his political consultant wife, the immediate knee-jerk response came from the state party’s executive director, “Baghdad Brent” Leatherwood, who said that Haynes “would in no way allow his...

State Party Chair begs Legislators to take their name off letter. RTP says waverers and others may be begging to sign back ON to the letter once they hear about new revelations. GOP state party chairman Ryan Haynes, instead of spending his time correcting the sordid scandal enveloping state party headquarters, has decided to attack the messengers. In the meantime, we offer a friendly caution to those wavering legislators and others who have rushed to defend Haynes: RTP has been tracking down accusations of other misdeeds and questionable arrangements that will likely make letter-deniers pleading to get their signatures back...

On Tuesday, the Tennessee General Assembly declared it will sue the federal government over its refugee resettlement program on Tenth Amendment grounds. The State Senate passed a resolution authorizing that lawsuit in a 29 to 4 vote one day after it passed the Tennessee House by a 69 to 25 margin. “Today we struck a blow for Liberty by finally adopting SJR467,” State Senator Mark Norris (R-Collierville), the co-sponsor of the resolution who shepherded it through the State Senate, tells Breitbart News. “The General Assembly clearly understands the importance of public safety and state sovereignty as demonstrated by the overwhelming...

On Tuesday, the Tennessee General Assembly declared it will sue the federal government over its refugee resettlement program on Tenth Amendment grounds. The State Senate passed a resolution authorizing that lawsuit in a 29 to 4 vote one day after it passed the Tennessee House by a 69 to 25 margin. “Today we struck a blow for Liberty by finally adopting SJR467,” State Senator Mark Norris (R-Collierville), the co-sponsor of the resolution who shepherded it through the State Senate, tells Breitbart News.

Updated | A Tennessee college student has apologized and a professor is “devastated” after an uproar began when six nooses of different colors arranged in the order of the rainbow found on Monday hanging from a tree on the campus of Tennessee’s Austin Peay State University (APSU) led to confusion and anger and were called “deeply disturbing and hurtful” by the university president—but on Tuesday an investigation found the display was a class art project. The display gained national attention after the Instagram account for the university’s chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) posted...

Police at Austin Peay State University in Tennessee have removed six rainbow colored nooses - widely seen as a symbol of racial hatred - hanging from a tree on campus, the school said. Police on Monday took down the row of nooses found near the university fine arts building on the main campus in Clarksville, Tennessee, after receiving several complaints, the school said in a statement. "This incident is deeply disturbing and is hurtful to our university community," said university president Alisa White. "I am saddened, and I am sorry for the hurt and offense this has caused." The intent...

A Tennessee transgender bathroom bill has failed after a sponsor pulled the measure until next year. The move Monday comes after intense opposition from businesses and gay, lesbian and transgender rights’ organizations that called the measure discriminatory and amid questions of whether the state would lose more than $1 billion in federal education funds. …

The Library of Congress is drawing ire from conservatives for removing the terms "alien" and "illegal alien" from its materials and replacing it with "noncitizens." Rep. Diane Black (R-TN) has introduced the Stopping Partisan Policy at the Library of Congress Act to put an end to what she defines as a politically correct ploy.“This needless policy change by the Library of Congress embodies so much of what taxpayers find enraging about Washington," Black said in a statement Thursday. "By trading common-sense language for sanitized political-speak, they are caving to the whims of left-wing special interests and attempting to mask the grave threat that...

NASHVILLE — Dozens of undocumented immigrant students from Chattanooga and other parts of Tennessee rallied Tuesday at the state Legislature and spoke with House members in hopes of reviving stalled legislation that would let them pay in-state tuition rates to attend public colleges and universities. The bill failed last year in the House by a single vote after passing the Senate overwhelmingly. . . . Sen. Todd Gardenhire, R-Chattanooga, who sponsored the Senate bill and passed it overwhelmingly last year, said, "I'm hoping they bring it out. Let's have a vote one way or the other." Earlier this year, Gardenhire...

PJTN (Proclaiming Justice to the Nations), CUFI (Christians United for Israel) and Tennessee’s state legislators like Judd Matheny and Sheila Butt, pass strong pro-Israel resolutions. Meanwhile, political leftists seem to dominate the organized Jewish community in Nashville, Tennessee. Despite over 100 knife attacks on Jews in Israel, no matter how many calls for another intifada, no matter how many Jewish children are murdered while sleeping in their beds, politically left American Jews and their leadership, stand with the jihadist murderers. The rabbis in Nashville even have a slogan that justifies this resolve – “We may be opponents, we need not...

Three Democrats are demanding that a Republican state lawmaker be disciplined after she distributed a video on Muslims that the General Assembly’s legal offices have said is so inflammatory that it could be viewed as religious discrimination. […] The directors of the Legislature’s Office of Legal Services and the Office of Administration warned (Susan) Lynn in a letter earlier this week about her distribution of a video titled “America’s Mosques Exposed! Video Evidence They are War Factories.” …

The Tennessee General Assembly is on track to sue the federal government over the refugee resettlement program on Tenth Amendment grounds after Senate Joint Resolution 467 cleared its last substantive hurdle in the Tennessee House Finance Committee. The resolution sailed through the committee on a voice vote, and is now headed to the Calendar and Rules Committee, which will schedule a vote on the floor of the House of Representatives some time during the next seven days. The resolution is expected to pass in a landslide, as 74 of the House’s 99 members have already signed on as sponsors. In...

Gun maker Beretta USA is opening a new factory on Friday, the culmination of generous land and tax offers in Tennessee and restrictive gun laws at its old Maryland location. Beretta USA is holding a ribbon cutting ceremony at the recently built facility in Gallatin, Tennessee, on April 15, having moved all manufacturing from Maryland. The new factory is 160,000 square feet, compared to 115,000 square feet if left behind, said Gabriele de Plano, vice president of defense marketing and operations for Beretta USA. "We've got plenty of space to expand as well," he said.

YOU WON’T BELIEVE THIS! CRUZ SUPPORTERS ATTEMPT COUP AT EAGLE FORUM! Conservative icon Phyllis Schlafly has been a national leader of the conservative movement since the publication of her best-selling 1964 book, A Choice Not An Echo. She has been a leader of the pro-family movement since 1972 when she led the fight to defeat the Equal Rights Amendment. Phyllis Schlafly is 91 years-old. On March 11, 2016 conservative icon Phyllis Schlafly endorsed Donald Trump for President at his St. Louis rally. But not everyone in her organization, Eagle Forum – or her family – agreed with Phyllis Schlafly’s...

As we previously reported Ted Cruz is trying to steal the election using delegates to over ride the will of the people. This is something he claimed he wouldn’t do and something the majority of people disagree with. The majority wants the party to unite behind Trump even if he doesn’t reach 1,237 delegates. The majority does not want Cruz and his establishment allies subverting the will of the people by way of delegates. The Colorado GOP tweeted this after the big steal. They have since deleted it and now claim they were hacked. It should be noted however that...

Donald Trump’s effort to reset his campaign following defeat in Wisconsin showed no signs of paying off this weekend, as a series of technical failures by his campaign set his hopes back even further. From Thursday to Saturday, Trump suffered setbacks in Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, South Carolina and Indiana that raise new doubts about his campaign’s preparedness for the long slog of delegate hunting as the GOP race approaches a possible contested convention. He lost the battle on two fronts. Cruz picked up 28 pledged delegates in Colorado. In the other states, rival campaigns were able to place dozens of...

A Republican state lawmaker from Tennessee is under attack from Democrats because he disseminated a video that criticizes Islam. Mt. Juliet Rep. Susan Lynn found herself likened to racists from the 1960s on Tuesday for sharing copies of a DVD, titled "America's Mosques Exposed: Video Evidence They Are War Factories," on behalf of a constituent. Democrats and allied activists denounced Lynn as a hate-monger. "It hit me really personally because I remember the 60s. I remember the discrimination. I remember having to sit in the back of the bus," state Rep. Johnnie Turner, a Democrat from Memphis, said Tuesday during...

Senate Democrats on Wednesday couldn't agree that federal debt is a national security problem, in a hearing aimed at assessing the long-term strategic implications of the government's $19 trillion debt. "A realistic discussion about it, and accepting expert opinion that this debt that we have is not actually right now a threat to our country, is I think a more realistic and honorable way of talking to the American people about it," Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., said during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Wednesday. That surprised committee chairman Bob Corker, who concluded the hearing by describing such views...