Gunfire at College Send-Off Party Kills Newly Minted Memphis Doctor, Wounds Four

(8.10.26 BenQQ) A Memphis woman who earned her doctorate just three months ago is dead and four others are wounded after gunfire tore through a Saturday night celebration in the Douglass neighborhood, the kind of everyday violence that keeps landing on Memphis families no matter how many task forces patrol the streets.

Memphis Police say a fight broke out just after 11:15 p.m. in the 1700 block of Brookins Street before multiple people opened fire on a crowd gathered to send a relative off to college. Dr. Shandrika Hayslett, 34, was pronounced dead at the scene. Two more victims were rushed to the hospital in critical condition, with a third and fourth listed non-critical; by Monday morning three had been released, while one remained in critical condition.

Family and friends identified Hayslett as a Douglass native who completed her doctorate in May, according to FOX13 Memphis. Lifelong friend Telisa Franklin, a state representative-elect, called Hayslett a source of pride for a community that had claimed her as proof hard work pays off, and joined other elected officials in publicly demanding accountability in the shooting's aftermath, Action News 5 reported. Investigators have identified three suspects but made no arrests as of Sunday. Memphis Police are asking anyone with information to come forward, a familiar refrain in a city where gunfire at cookouts, block parties and family celebrations has become a grim summer pattern regardless of how many federal agents patrol downtown.

Downtown Parking-Lot Argument Ends With Pickup Truck Running Down Two Pedestrians, Suspect Still Loose

(8.10.26 BenQQ) Two people are nursing injuries and a suspect remains on the run after a Saturday night argument outside a Downtown Memphis taco stand ended with a pickup truck jumping the curb and running down two pedestrians on the sidewalk, a reminder that Memphis's public spaces stay dangerous even blocks from City Hall.

Memphis Police say officers responded just before 11:30 p.m. Saturday to find two victims lying on a Danny Thomas Boulevard sidewalk with abrasions and bruising, according to Action News 5. Witnesses told police the pair had been walking south on the sidewalk when an unidentified gray pickup truck sped onto the sidewalk and struck both of them.

A bystander told police the attack followed a verbal argument between the victims and the truck's occupants in the parking lot of TACO-N-GANAS, a restaurant on Danny Thomas Boulevard. Both victims were taken to the hospital in non-critical condition.

No suspect has been named, and police are asking anyone with information to call Crime Stoppers at 901-528-CASH. The truck's make and model remain unknown, leaving the case open in a city where parking-lot disputes are increasingly ending in vehicular violence.

Incoming Sheriff and Mayor Inherit Local Government Dysfunction

(8.9.26) Shelby County's incoming sheriff and mayor are promising to actually speak to each other about the county jail — a low bar that outgoing officials Floyd Bonner and Lee Harris failed to clear for nearly eight years while 68 people died in custody.

Sheriff-Elect Anthony Buckner and Mayor-Elect Mickell Lowery pledged to collaborate on fixing the aging, understaffed Shelby County jail, a facility now at the center of the murder trial over inmate Gershun Freeman's 2022 death, WMC Action News 5 reported. Outgoing Sheriff Bonner admitted he and outgoing Mayor Harris had, by his own count, roughly two conversations in nearly eight years of sharing office. "That's not any way to operate a relationship between the sheriff's office and the mayor's office," Bonner said.

Former Sheriff Mark Luttrell, who worked alongside former Mayor A C Wharton to fix the jail under a federal consent decree, said the incoming pair should follow that model of cooperation instead of the dysfunction that defined the Bonner-Harris years. Buckner has toured the Franklin County jail in Columbus, Ohio, as a possible template, while Lowery called Shelby County's jail crisis a "generational project" the county can no longer afford to ignore.

Lowery also inherits a Shelby County government that took out two loans to cover expenses and had five straight annual budgets rejected by the state Comptroller's Office under Harris — a fiscal record Luttrell noted his own administration never matched, having never borrowed to pay bills. Whether the new administration's talk of teamwork translates into a safer jail remains to be seen, but the bar their predecessors set could not be lower.

Video Shows Jailers Punching, Pepper-Spraying Inmate Before He Died — Their Own Boss Grades the Response a 1 Out of 10

(8.9.26) Newly released courtroom video shows Shelby County jail officers punching, kicking and pepper-spraying an unarmed, naked inmate in the moments before he stopped breathing — testimony so damning that the jail's own chief inspector rated his team's performance a one out of ten.

Day two of the murder trial for former Shelby County jailers Stevon Jones and Cortney Parham unfolded Saturday at the 201 Poplar jail, where prosecutors called Chief Inspector Michael Green, the highest-ranking officer on duty the day inmate Gershun Freeman died in 2022, according to WMC Action News 5. Video played in court showed Freeman escaping his cell naked before several officers surrounded him, striking and spraying him within seconds.

Freeman went into cardiac arrest while being restrained face down for more than five minutes, Davidson County District Attorney Glenn Funk told jurors, arguing that Jones and Parham knowingly killed Freeman by cutting off his ability to breathe. Green testified he was not sure how long Freeman went without CPR because he was still recovering from the pepper spray himself — an admission that drew visible reaction in the courtroom.

Medical Examiner Marco Ross testified that Freeman's body, straining for oxygen during the struggle, demanded more blood flow than his restrained heart could deliver. Jones and Parham face second-degree murder and aggravated assault charges; seven other jailers were also charged in connection with Freeman's death. Testimony resumes Monday at 9:30 a.m., with Action News 5 continuing live coverage from the courtroom.

Gunfire at North Memphis Block Party Leaves One Dead, Four Wounded

(8.9.26) A woman is dead and four other people are wounded after gunfire tore through a crowded block party in North Memphis overnight, the latest bloodshed in a city where large, unpermitted gatherings keep turning deadly.

Officers arriving on scene found a woman who was rushed to the hospital, where she later died. Four more victims followed: a woman and a man in critical condition, and another man and woman who arrived by private vehicle with non-critical injuries. No arrests have been announced, and the shooter or shooters fled the scene before police arrived.

Memphis Police told WMC Action News 5 that a shooting call came in just after 11 p.m. Saturday from the 1700 block of Brookins Street, where a large party had drawn a crowd. A fight broke out during the gathering, and within moments multiple shots rang out, striking several homes and vehicles along with the victims.

The shooting adds to a summer pattern of block-party violence in Memphis that keeps overwhelming patrol officers and emergency rooms alike, even as city and federal officials tout falling homicide numbers elsewhere in the city this year. CrimeStoppers 901-528-CASH. 

Rifle Casings and a Pool of Blood: East Memphis Home Shooting Leaves Two Fighting for Life

(8.9.26) Two men are in critical condition after a rifle-wielding attacker opened fire inside an East Memphis home, leaving one victim face-down in a pool of blood and the other unable to identify who shot him.

Both victims were rushed to Regional One Health in critical condition. Police have released no suspect description and no motive, leaving the Philsdale Avenue neighborhood to wonder who opened fire and why.

The shooting is at least the second violent gun crime to hit Memphis neighborhoods within 24 hours, underscoring the gap between task-force messaging on falling crime and the reality still playing out on residential streets. CrimeStoppers 901-528-CASH.

Memphis Safe Task Force Runs Down Fugitive Accused of Gunning Down Motorcyclist

(8.8.26 BenQQ) One alleged killer is off the street, but her accomplice is still out there after the pair fled Tennessee entirely in a stolen car — a case that shows both the reach and the limits of Memphis' crime-fighting apparatus.

The Memphis Safe Task Force tracked Ashundra Lee, 39, to Oklahoma City and passed the lead to the U.S. Marshals' Western Oklahoma Fugitive Task Force, which took her into custody Thursday. Lee had been wanted on a Shelby County homicide warrant since July 21 for allegedly shooting and running over a motorcyclist near Wilson Street and Gill Avenue alongside Joseph Harris, 37.

After the killing, Lee and Harris allegedly stole a vehicle and ran, turning up as far away as Fayetteville, Arkansas, where investigators say they stole a second vehicle, a white Honda SUV, before Lee's trail went cold until this week. Harris, wanted on first-degree murder and evidence-tampering charges, remains at large.

Shelby County Deputies' Restraint-Death Trial Exposes Issues of Official Deadly Force at 201 Poplar. 

(8.8.26 BenQQ) Put mutually opposed humans in a closed jail environment and this is what is bound to happen at some point–a death and a trial.

Defense attorneys contend that a naked, combative prisoner charged out of his cell, bit a jailer and fought through pepper spray in a chaotic emergency. 

Two Shelby County corrections deputies now face the prospect of prison as a Memphis courtroom hears how 201 Poplar handled the October 2022 in-custody death of inmate Gershun Freeman, a case that has already produced nine indictments and a fresh round of doubt about who runs the county's jail.

Davidson County District Attorney Glenn Funk, brought in after the Shelby County DA's office recused itself over its ties to the sheriff's department, told jurors that deputies Stevon Jones and Cortney Parham pinned the 33-year-old Freeman face down for more than five minutes despite use-of-force training that explicitly warns against prone restraint because of asphyxiation risk. 

Shelby County's own medical examiner ruled Freeman's death a homicide from cardiac arrest during the restraint; a second examiner brought in as a state consultant went further, calling it mechanical asphyxiation. 

Testimony resumed Saturday with jurors sequestered away from home and cellphones for a trial expected to run more than a week — a taxpayer-funded spectacle that will not end the reckoning, since seven more deputies indicted in Freeman's death still await their own proceedings.

Gunmen Still on the Loose After North Memphis Shooting Leaves Man Fighting for Life

(8.8.16 BenQQ) A Vollintine-area man is fighting for his life tonight, and two shooters are still free after Memphis Police could only release vague clothing descriptions nearly a full day after the attack — the kind of gap that leaves North Memphis residents wondering how many gunmen simply drive away clean.

Officers responded to North Watkins Street near Vollintine Avenue at 4:42 p.m. Friday and found a man with life-threatening injuries. Two suspects fled east on Vollintine in a brown or burgundy sedan, according to the Memphis Police Department.

MPD describes one suspect as roughly six feet tall and 200 pounds, last seen in a black hat, black T-shirt, burgundy joggers and black-and-white shoes; the second was described only as a man with short hair wearing a white T-shirt — descriptions thin enough that little currently stands between the shooters and their next target.

The Vollintine shooting was one of at least three reported in Memphis within 24 hours, following an early-morning killing in Southeast Memphis and an overnight shooting in South Memphis — a pace that undercuts City Hall's talking points about falling crime. Anyone with information is asked to call CrimeStoppers at 901-528-CASH.

Voters Hand Shelby County Right Back to One-Party Rule

(8.7.26 BenQQ) Shelby County voters have guaranteed at least four more years of unchecked Democratic control at the courthouse, handing the mayor's office and the Sheriff's Office to the same party currently defending a courthouse employee against federal corruption charges. Mickell Lowery declared victory Thursday night, cruising past Republican John DeBerry with roughly 65 percent of the vote, according to Action News 5.

Anthony Buckner, the outgoing chief deputy under term-limited Sheriff Floyd Bonner, defeated Republican Brad Less for the top job at the Sheriff's Office, Action News 5 reported.

The results landed seven weeks after federal prosecutors indicted General Sessions Court Clerk Tami Sawyer, a fellow Shelby County constitutional officer, on charges she siphoned more than $44,000 in taxpayer money for personal expenses, including alcohol and Uber Eats. Sawyer pleaded not guilty and is set for trial in January, but her indictment did nothing to slow her party's momentum at the ballot box.

Buckner's first test is now. Jail healthcare contractor Wellpath notified the state this week it is permanently shutting down medical operations at every Shelby County correctional facility, leaving the incoming sheriff to manage a healthcare vacuum inside an already-strained jail system.

Voters had two candidates in each race warning about the same jail crisis and the same courthouse dysfunction. They chose the party that has run the courthouse through both.

Wellpath's Exit Leaves Shelby County Jail Without a Doctor

Roughly 119 people will lose their jobs and thousands of Shelby County inmates will lose consistent medical care by September 30, after jail healthcare contractor Wellpath told the state it is permanently closing its operations inside every Shelby County correctional facility, Action News 5 reported.

The company filed a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification with the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development on August 4, listing closures at the Shelby County Correctional Facility on Mullins Station Road, the East Women's Facility on Haley Road, the downtown jail at 201 Poplar Avenue, and the Shelby County Youth Justice Education Center, according to the Daily Memphian.

Wellpath is no stranger to collapse. The company filed for bankruptcy earlier this year and has been shedding contracts nationwide, including a similar pullout from the jail health system in Placer County, California, according to Hoodline.

Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris' office insists Wellpath will stay on the job until a new vendor is signed, but no replacement has been named. Incoming Sheriff Anthony Buckner has said reducing the jail population and expanding mental health services will be his first priorities — promises that just got harder to keep with the jail's medical provider walking out the door.

Shelby County taxpayers, not Wellpath executives, will absorb the cost of finding a replacement under emergency conditions — the predictable result of county leadership treating jail healthcare as an afterthought rather than a core public safety obligation.

Shelby County Voters Decide Today Whether One-Party Rule Continues

(8.6.26 BenQQ) Shelby County residents to vote on a new county mayor today. The outcome will decide who controls a multi-hundred-million-dollar budget, the county jail, health department and school funding for the next four years.

Republican John DeBerry, a former Democratic state representative turned GOP standard-bearer, faces Democrat Mickell Lowery, a sitting county commissioner and son of former Memphis City Councilman Myron Lowery, in the general election to replace term-limited Lee Harris.

Lowery cleared a crowded seven-candidate Democratic primary in May with just 32 percent of the vote, edging out councilman JB Smiley and former MSCS superintendent Marie Feagins, a result that speaks less to a mandate than to a fractured Democratic base still running the county's affairs.

DeBerry, a longtime Memphis Democrat who broke with his party over school choice and other issues before switching sides, gives Shelby County Republicans their most credible countywide shot in years against a local Democratic machine that has held the mayor's office since 2018.

The Shelby County Election Commission spent Wednesday rechecking voting machines ahead of Thursday's vote, and results are expected to be tallied Thursday night.

Local Activists Demand Local Airport Stop ICE Flights of Illegal Aliens

(8.5.26 BenQQ sourced from local media) Activists gathered Tuesday outside Wilson Air Center to demand the private aviation facility stop hosting flights that move detained immigrants out of West Tennessee, timing their protest to a bus of detainees arriving from the West Tennessee Detention Facility in Mason, roughly 45 miles away, according to Action News 5.

The group, Vecindarios 901, says it has tracked 51 such flights leaving Wilson Air Center since March, most bound for a federal facility in Alexandria, Louisiana. Co-founder Maria Oceja called on the facility's owners to "reconsider your role" in what she characterized as the current administration's deportation operation, and organizers held signs at the fence line for detainees to see as buses pulled in.

Regarding the societal impact of illegal aliens, a  2026 Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas working paper estimated that unauthorized immigration raised home prices by about 6.6%. Because prices rose about 22% overall, that 6.6% accounted for roughly 30% of the total increase. Further, illegal immigration also cost $9.2 billion in 2023 for schools, health care and other public services. Money sent abroad as remittances further reduces how much of those earnings is spent within the U.S. economy. 

Regarding crime, no national database that reliably measures ordinary crime committed by illegal immigrants. Most crime is prosecuted by state and local authorities, whose records do not consistently identify or verify immigration status. However one stat that can be verified is regarding illegal truck drivers. According to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, non-domiciled commercial drivers who would be ineligible for licenses under newly tightened federal rules caused at least 17 fatal crashes and 30 deaths in 2025. 

Activists argue the flights hinder detainees' ability to challenge their custody in court, since habeas corpus petitions generally must be filed in the jurisdiction where a detainee is physically held, and that moving people frequently makes it harder for families and lawyers to track them. The group's claim that such flights have increased 123% under the current administration comes from its own tracking, not an independently audited federal count.

What the protest cannot erase is that these detainees are being held under federal immigration laws enacted by Congress—not under policies invented by local officials or ICE agents. The government is carrying out detention, transfer and removal actions under those laws, although individual detainees may use whatever reviews, hearings or appeals the law makes available in their particular cases. 

Requiring a new, full court proceeding for every detainee—including those who have already received removal orders—would place an additional burden on an immigration-court system already carrying more than 3 million pending cases and would further delay cases awaiting decisions. Wilson Air Center has not issued a public response to the group's demand that it drop what activists describe as a flight-services relationship with ICE.

including those who have already received removal orders—would place an additional burden on an immigration-court system already carrying more than 3 million pending cases and would further delay cases awaiting decisions. Wilson Air Center has not issued a public response to the group's demand that it drop what activists describe as a flight-services relationship with ICE.

Memphis Schools Open With 300 Empty Teaching Jobs Despite Enrollment Gains While Keeping “Disruptive Students” in the Classroom Instead of Removing Them

(8.4.26 BenQQ) More than 100,000 Memphis-Shelby County Schools students walked into classrooms Monday with roughly 300 teaching positions still unfilled, meaning thousands of Memphis kids opened the year without a permanent teacher assigned to their room.

Superintendent Roderick Richmond said offers are out for 70 of those jobs, leaving about 230 vacancies with no candidate in the pipeline at all, missing his own goal of fewer than 100 openings by the start of the year, though running close to last August's 226 unfilled slots.

The gaps will again be plugged by remote instructors supplied through a $4.7 million contract with Proximity Learning, which staffed close to 100 virtual teachers in Memphis classrooms last year.

It isn't a pay problem.  MSCS's own 2026-27 salary schedule now starts new teachers at $51,827.51 a year, up from last year's $50,000 floor and the district still can't fill the room. What's driving the exodus, both nationally and in the data MSCS itself publishes, is who controls the classroom once the bell rings.

Roughly 20% of teachers nationwide say they plan to leave the profession before this school year, according to the RAND Corporation's 2026 State of the American Teacher survey, and a March 2026 Education Week survey found 35% of teachers rating student behavior "a lot worse" than the year before. 

MSCS reports its own office disciplinary referrals fell from nearly 62,000 to about 37,500 over the past school year, and the districtwide suspension rate dropped from 13% to just over 11% — a shift officials attribute to a district-wide move toward "restorative practices" that keep disruptive students in the classroom instead of removing them. 

That's precisely the complaint driving teachers out nationally: the Thomas B. Fordham Institute has flatly called it "no-consequence discipline," describing classrooms where students curse at, threaten and in some cases physically confront staff with administrators — and parents — declining to back the teacher up.

The first day also brought reassignment for more than 1,200 students after the district shuttered five schools this year, the opening wave of Richmond's plan to close up to 15 buildings by 2028 over chronic underenrollment and repair costs.

MSCS opened the year still operating under a federal court order keeping the elected school board in charge while Tennessee Republicans' push for a state takeover plays out in court, a fight that, if it goes the state's way, would hand budget and closure decisions to a nine-member board appointed in Nashville.

Memphis Council Fast-Tracks Rental Crackdown, Millions for Drive-In Redevelopment

Memphis property owners renting out rooms and houses on Airbnb and similar platforms are one vote away from a new city permit mandate, as the City Council takes its first vote today on rules requiring every short-term rental operator to obtain a permit within 45 business days or face enforcement.

The ordinance follows a March resolution from Councilman Philip Spinosa Jr. and Council Chairwoman Jana Swearengen-Washington ordering Mayor Paul Young's administration to crack down on short-term rental nuisances after months of neighborhood complaints about noise, parking and party houses.

The same Tuesday agenda moves city money toward redeveloping the shuttered Southwest Twin Drive-In into a new Memphis Police precinct, alongside a progress report on the city bus system and a round of bond restructuring, according to the Daily Memphian.

Second Coding Error in a Month Renews Case Against Machine Ballots in Shelby County

(8.3.26 sourced from: Action News 5, The Daily Memphian, LocalMemphis, and Congress.gov | The editorialization is ours.) A second ballot-coding failure in a month is giving fresh ammunition to voters who don't trust electronic voting machines with their ballot. Shelby County Election Commission Administrator Linda Phillips confirmed today at a media availability at the Shelby County Election Operations Center that the missing judicial races were caused by "human error" — specifically, a database coding mistake in which Judicial District 30 was mistakenly entered as Senate District 30. The Election Commission says the error was confined to a single machine at the Christian Life Church early voting site, affecting roughly 300 voters; the machine has been pulled from service, and FedEx-tracked supplemental ballots are going out to the absentee voters affected by the earlier, separate July error.

That a single mistyped line of code could quietly strip four judicial races from hundreds of ballots — twice — is precisely the vulnerability critics of touchscreen and machine-tabulated voting have warned about for years: a backend error invisible to the voter at the moment they cast their ballot. The briefing doubled as a turnout update, with the commission reporting nearly 70,000 early votes cast ahead of the August 6 general election, a pace that could set a record — though officials acknowledged the milestone has been "tempered" by the back-to-back ballot mistakes. The errors have already drawn a rare joint statement from Shelby County's Democratic and Republican parties, demanding full transparency on how the error occurred and what safeguards failed — a sign the concern over machine reliability crosses party lines.

Though mistakes are rare for this election commission, machine ballots have been a source of controversy since the 2020 election, and episodes like this one are exactly what's fueling the push in Washington for hand-marked paper ballots. The Make Elections Great Again (MEGA) Act, working its way through Congress alongside the SAVE America Act, would require voter-verifiable paper ballots for every federal race and mandate that every in-person polling location offer voters the option to hand-mark theirs rather than rely solely on a machine. A coding glitch on a piece of paper a voter can read and verify before it leaves their hands is a mistake the voter catches on the spot; a coding glitch buried in a machine's database is one a county doesn't catch until 300 ballots are already cast.

Shelby County voters won't have that option this cycle. They'll decide August 6 between Democrat Mickell Lowery and Republican John DeBerry to succeed term-limited Mayor Lee Harris — on the same machines that have now misfired twice in one election cycle.

Memphis-Shelby County Students Return to Class

(8.3.26) Memphis-Shelby County Schools opened the 2026–27 school year today as students across the district returned from summer break. District officials are also beginning the year with administrative and operational changes taking effect behind the scenes.

Trial Begins in Gershun Freeman Jail-Death Case

(8.3.26) Court proceedings are scheduled to begin Monday for two former Shelby County corrections deputies charged in connection with the 2022 death of jail inmate Gershun Freeman. Stevon Jones and Courtney Parham face second-degree murder and aggravated-assault charges after Freeman died following a confrontation with corrections officers.

Good Morning Memphis. Aug 3, 2026

FedEx is putting real money into the Memphis World Hub. The company filed an $18.1 million permit for a new freight facility expansion at the airport, part of a broader modernization push that also includes a sorting-center upgrade filed earlier this year. It's a concrete vote of confidence in Memphis as FedEx's home base, even if the company hasn't confirmed new hiring yet. (Action News 5 | Fox13 Memphis)

Kids head back to school today with a boost from local businesses. MSCS classes resume August 3, and salons across the city — Jolie Hair Studio and Essentials Beauty Salon among them — are offering free haircuts and styles for Shelby County kids, alongside the broader wave of school-supply giveaways your event digest already flagged. A hometown, community-funded story rather than a government program. (Fox13 Memphis | MSCS)

300 Memphis kids got free skateboards and safety gear. Shelby County government hosted "Youth on Deck" in Frayser on July 25, handing out boards and helmets to ages 10-17 with basic-skills instruction included — good local color, though it's a week old now so best used as a wrap-up/photo piece rather than breaking news. (Shelby County, TN)

Shelby County Election Officials Botch Judicial Ballot a Second Time. Machine “Human Error” Blamed. Presser Monday.

(8.2.26 BenQQ) Roughly 300 Shelby County voters may have cast an incomplete ballot this week — the second time in a month that election officials have managed to leave the same four judicial races off a ballot, raising fresh questions about whether the county can be trusted to run a clean election.

The Shelby County Election Commission confirmed Saturday that a voting machine at the Christian Life Church early voting location was missing the same four judicial races that had already been omitted from a batch of 700 absentee ballots sent out in July.

Election Commission Administrator Linda Phillips blamed "human error," saying her office has been "stretched beyond capacity by the addition of a last-minute judicial race." That explanation will offer little comfort to voters who trusted the county to get their ballot right on the second try.

The commission says the error is believed to be confined to a single machine, and final confirmation of the scope is expected Monday, when the Shelby County Election Commission holds a press conference at 10 a.m. at the Shelby County Election Operations Center.

Some say these types of voting problems would be eliminated with the Save America Act, but the SAVE Act only addresses voter eligibility. Another act supporters want to put beside the SAVE Act is the Make Elections Great Again Act (MEGA) which requires voter-verifiable paper ballots for every federal race, either hand-marked by the voter or produced by a ballot-marking device.

Boy Killed in Hickory Hill Shooting as Memphis Logs Another Young Life Lost

(8.2.26 BenQQ) According to the Memphis Police Department, officers responded to a shots-fired call near Innsbrook Drive and Birch Run Lane just before 5 p.m. Saturday. They found a juvenile male in critical condition and rushed him to the hospital, where he was later pronounced dead.

Police say they have one man detained and have opened an active death investigation, but as of Sunday morning they had released neither the victim's name nor his age. The circumstances that put a child in the path of gunfire remain unexplained.

Anyone with information is urged to contact CrimeStoppers at 901-528-CASH.

Cordova Neighborhood Wakes to Gunfire as Domestic Dispute Spills Into the Street

(8.1.26 BenQQ) A Cordova family's early morning ended with bullet holes in their property after a domestic dispute turned into a shots-fired call before sunrise Friday, and it took the Memphis Police Department only hours to run down the shooter.

Officers responded to Country Squire Place just after 4:30 a.m. on July 31 after neighbors reported gunfire. No one was hit, but the rounds tore into property at the scene, according to Action News 5.

Investigators say the suspect sped off in a red sedan, but MPD tracked him down and made an arrest later the same day. Police believe the gunfire stemmed from a domestic disturbance, not a random act.

Road Rage Shooter, Three Gang Members Pulled Off Memphis Streets in Latest Task Force Sweep

Dozens of violent offenders are off Memphis streets this week after a man wanted in a road rage shooting and three men identified as known gang members were among a fresh round of arrests announced Thursday by the Memphis Police Department and the federal Memphis Safe Task Force, according to the Daily Memphian.

The task force, a multi-agency operation combining the U.S. Marshals Service, Homeland Security Investigations, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the Tennessee National Guard, was launched by presidential order last September to hammer down Memphis violent crime. Thursday's announcement was the latest in a string of weekly crime updates the task force has issued since.

While xAI Expands, Two Memphis High Schools Still Wait on Musk's Broken Promise–Where is SpaceXAI’s Community Relations?

Corporate community relations lesson 1: Perhaps if you are going to build a disruptive facility in a multi-trillion dollar industry in a poor community, you should at least make sure you do the right thing by that community.

For a company that markets itself on speed and delivery, the gap between the announcement and the follow-through is the story: big headline, quiet retreat, and two schools left holding an expired agreement.

Two Memphis high schools with some of the worst building conditions in the district are still waiting on repairs Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company promised a year ago, even as the company quietly builds a fourth data center in the same stretch of southwest Memphis, according to Daily Memphian reporting.

A year ago, Elon Musk's company, then known as xAI and now rebranded SpaceXAI, pledged sweeping upgrades to four campuses near its Whitehaven and Westwood data centers: John P. Freeman Optional, Fairley High, Mitchell High and Westwood High. Memphis-Shelby County Schools estimates those four buildings alone need roughly $61 million in repairs over the next decade.

A year later, only two of the four have seen any work: campus beautification at John P. Freeman and a locker room and gym renovation at Fairley High, funded by an estimated $3.6 million SpaceXAI donation. Mitchell High and Westwood High have received nothing. The company also imposed a $5 million donation cap that was never part of the original pitch and cannot cover the full list of promised projects. The agreement expired June 30 and has not been renewed.

Meanwhile, Musk appeared to acknowledge this week that SpaceXAI has built yet another data center in Memphis, a facility known internally as "Minihard," expanding the company's footprint even as its commitment to the schoolchildren next door lapses unfulfilled. Daily Memphian columnist Geoff Calkins put it plainly this week: it is time for SpaceXAI to live up to its promise to Memphis kids.

Task force pulls accused child rapist and two murder suspects off Memphis streets in one night

Twelve-year-old rape victims in Memphis got a measure of justice this week, and two men wanted for killings are no longer walking free, after the Memphis Safe Task Force logged 30 arrests and recovered two illegal firearms in a single day of operations.

Among Tuesday's catches, according to the U.S. Marshals Service, was Jose Navarro, 37, wanted on a warrant for rape of a child and aggravated sexual battery involving a 12-year-old victim. Also taken into custody: Albert Boyce, 25, on a second-degree murder warrant tied to a December 2020 killing, and Decoreion McDowell, 25, on a separate second-degree murder warrant. McDowell's own mother called him downstairs to surrender.

The arrests land as the task force fights to keep its footing after a rough stretch of controversy. WREG has reported growing calls from faith and business leaders for the task force to leave the city following two fatal officer-involved shootings earlier this month, and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is now reviewing eight separate use-of-force incidents involving task force officers.

Whatever one thinks of the task force's methods, the ledger from Tuesday is hard to argue with: a child predator and two accused killers are behind bars instead of on the block. Memphis residents weighing the task force's record should hold both facts at once, not just the ones that fit a preferred narrative.

Update from previous related story: Memphis schools open under the shadow of a $54 million fraud audit

Memphis-Shelby County Schools families are sending their kids back into classrooms this week inside a district the state's own auditors say bled tens of millions of dollars through mismanagement, with no guarantee the rot has been cut out.

The final forensic audit, released by the Tennessee Comptroller's office and prepared by CliftonLarsonAllen, tagged more than $54 million in Memphis-Shelby County Schools spending as potential fraud, waste, or abuse across the 667-page review. The single largest chunk, over $48 million, traces to a custodial contract handed to ServiceMaster Clean in 2022 over the advice of staff who recommended splitting the work among multiple vendors. The district canceled that contract a year later after parents and employees complained the schools were not being cleaned.

Chalkbeat flags the audit fallout as one of the top storylines to watch as the new school year begins, alongside staffing and enrollment questions the district has yet to resolve. Parents deserve a straight answer on who signed off on a $48 million contract nobody vetted properly, and MSCS leadership has offered little beyond promises to do better.

Until someone is held accountable by name, Memphis taxpayers are stuck footing the bill twice: once for the wasted money, and again for whatever it costs to fix what the contract failed to clean.

Memphis Ranked Unsafe Again, Another Study Finds. Worse than Nashville.

(7.29.26 BenQQ) Memphis residents already living with the daily reality of thugs, criminals, degenerates and gangs now have a national ranking to match it: a new SmartAsset study placed Memphis dead last, at No. 83, among the large U.S. cities it analyzed for safety, trailing even Nashville at No. 76, as first reported by Action News 5.

The study weighed violent crime, property crime, fatal traffic crashes, drug overdose deaths and excessive drinking across the country's largest cities. Memphis posted a violent-crime rate of 0.0616 per capita and a property-crime rate of 0.1286 per capita, both substantially higher than Nashville's figures. SmartAsset's authors pointed to Memphis's high crime and traffic-fatality rates, combined with a "relatively high" FEMA disaster-risk rating, as the reasons the city landed at the very bottom of the list.

City Hall has not offered a public response to the ranking. The findings arrive the same week Shelby County commissioners are sparring with Mayor Harris over the county budget just months after Memphis Safe Task Force agents began patrolling the city under a federal mandate to bring down crime. It raised  obvious questions for Memphians.

After months of task force deployment, why does this data put Memphis last in the nation? Is there so much underlying crime in Memphis that requires far more effort in MSFT and police? So do we need more MSTF personnel on the streets? Why has the city’s politicians been less than enthusiastic about cleaning up crime with the help of the Memphis Safe Task Force?

The only answer we can figure: MSTF is a Trump program and Memphis politicos and media will give little credit to any successful Trump effort. There have been many. Traditional Memphis politicians are not helping the city in this regard.

So Its Come to This: School Principals Wearing Body Cameras. Is This the Future for Memphis Schools?

(7/28/26 BenQQ commentary and report first seen on ABC 24.) When students return to West Memphis schools on Aug. 4, some of them will encounter something normally associated with police officers rather than educators: principals and assistant principals wearing body cameras.

You don’t have to be a social scientist to pontificate the meaning of this: body cameras for school officials now serve as a tacit admission some contemporary students are uncontrollable in school.

Schools are throwing in the towel. Next step? Maybe armed guards standing in the corner of each classroom as kids scream and throw things at the teacher.(And get A’s just to move them up and out.)

Administrators at the West Memphis School District’s two middle schools and high school will be expected to activate the cameras during disciplinary conversations and other significant interactions with students.

Superintendent Eric Foister said the purpose is to protect students, protect employees and give the district better information when parents and school officials disagree over what occurred.

Schools have traditionally depended on written reports, witness statements and the professional judgment of teachers and administrators. West Memphis is now adding video evidence to that process. A disputed confrontation no longer has to depend entirely on a student’s account against a principal’s account—provided the camera was activated and captured the entire encounter.

Supporters can reasonably argue that cameras may discourage students and adults from becoming abusive, provide evidence when false accusations are made and reveal whether an administrator handled a confrontation properly. They might also protect students when an adult crosses the line.

Critics can raise equally serious questions: Who decides when recording begins? Can an administrator selectively activate the camera? How long will recordings be retained? Can parents see footage involving their children? What happens when several students appear in the same recording? And will children begin to regard principals less as educators and more as law-enforcement officers? Lawyers can raise these same questions.

Under federal student-privacy guidance, a school video can become an education record when it is directly related to a student and maintained by the school. Parents may have inspection rights in some circumstances, although schools must also protect the privacy of other students shown in the footage.

Why this matters to Memphis

West Memphis is not a remote Arkansas community. It sits directly across the Mississippi River and forms part of the larger Memphis metropolitan area. The conditions forcing its schools to consider body cameras—student confrontations, disputed disciplinary incidents, violence and distrust between families and school officials—do not stop at the bridge.

Memphis-Shelby County Schools already operates an extensive security structure.

There is no indication in the material reviewed that Memphis-Shelby County Schools has decided to equip principals with body cameras. But West Memphis has now created a nearby test case that Memphis parents and school officials can watch.

For Memphis, the central question is no longer whether cameras belong in schools—they are already present in hallways, entrances and school buses. The harder question is whether cameras should be attached to the people making disciplinary decisions.

School officials wearing body cams reveal failures: perhaps societal parental structure, parenting, the education system as well as certain teachers plus a social media structure that romanticizes violence and lawlessness.

This is a little sign that indicates a trend: we are in trouble. As with any symptom, it has started small.

Two Overnight Shootings, Five Wounded, Same Hickory Hill Block

Five Memphis men are recovering from gunshot wounds, one of them critical, after two separate shootings erupted at the same Hickory Hill address in less than two hours before dawn Sunday, forcing officers to return to the same block twice before sunrise.

The first call came in just after midnight, when officers were told a man had been shot in the 6600 block of Winchester Road. He was listed in critical condition. Less than two hours later, at 2:15 a.m., officers were back at the same location for a second shooting. Paramedics rushed one man to the hospital in non-critical condition, and three more men arrived at area hospitals on their own, also non-critical, according to the Memphis Police Department.

Investigators have not said whether the two shootings are connected, though the tight timeline and shared address make coincidence a hard sell. No arrests have been announced.

The overnight violence lands even as Memphis Police Department data shows citywide violent crime down more than 40 percent since the Memphis Safe Task Force launched last fall, a trend the White House and Gov. Bill Lee have both pointed to as proof the federal-state crackdown is working. Hickory Hill's Sunday morning says the job is not finished.

Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 901-528-CASH.

Shelby County Borrows $125 Million to Cover the Bills It Can't Pay

Update from previous related story:

Shelby County taxpayers are on the hook for another nine-figure loan after commissioners voted Monday to authorize a $125 million line of credit just to keep the county solvent and to pay for an emergency fix to the broken air conditioning system inside the county jail, the latest sign county government cannot manage its own checkbook, according to the Daily Memphian.

The vote comes one month after commissioners raised the county property tax rate by a penny specifically because the reserve fund had run so low it threatened the county's ability to meet payroll, a warning sign county leadership has now ignored twice in a single fiscal year.

Part of the borrowed money is earmarked for the Shelby County Criminal Justice Center at 201 Poplar, where the air conditioning failed for a month this summer, temperatures inside hit 92 degrees, a diesel fuel leak flooded the kitchen, and 14 inmates and five staff members required medical treatment for heat exposure, according to the Shelby County Sheriff's Office, which held an emergency press conference demanding action from County Mayor Lee Harris.

The jail crisis followed months of tension between Sheriff Floyd Bonner and Mayor Harris, including a lawsuit Bonner filed in July accusing the county of stripping more than $67 million from his approved budget through an unexplained "vacancy savings" line item, a dispute the two sides have since moved toward settling for a fraction of that amount.

Tennessee Comptroller Jason Mumpower has rejected Shelby County's annual budget as deficient for five consecutive years running, and Harris has blamed rising costs tied to jail overcrowding, the Memphis Safe Task Force and falling property tax revenue for the county's cash crunch. Whatever the excuse, Shelby County residents are the ones footing a bill that keeps getting bigger while the government spending their money keeps missing its own numbers.

NPR Concedes the Memphis Task Force Is Doing Exactly What It Says--A Media Review

(7.27.26 BenQQ) NPR published a lengthy piece today portraying the Memphis Safe Task Force as a bait and switch, arguing the federal-state operation sold to the public as anti-crime enforcement "quietly turned into an ICE crackdown," a framing built almost entirely on interviews with immigration lawyers, activist groups and a Trump-administration watchdog rather than the task force's own results.

Buried in NPR's own reporting is the fact that Memphis Police Department data shows crime falling to a 25-year low since the task force arrived last fall, with citywide violent crime down more than 40 percent, a figure both the White House and Gov. Bill Lee have cited as vindication. NPR also confirms 891 immigration arrests have been recorded in Shelby County since the operation launched, with 536 ending in deportation, citing analysis from the Institute for Public Service Reporting in Memphis.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Marshals Service, which leads the task force, told NPR the operation's primary focus remains violent offenders but did not shy from the obvious: "We arrest anyone who is breaking the law. If you are in the country illegally, you are committing a crime." That is not a scandal. That is the law being enforced, a distinction NPR's sourcing, heavy on advocacy groups, treats instead as a betrayal.

Memphis Mayor Paul Young, a Democrat, told NPR he does not "support" the immigration enforcement piece of the task force but conceded no mayor in the country can control federal immigration policy, a tacit admission the operation is functioning exactly as federal law allows. President Trump has said he intends to replicate the Memphis model in other states, meaning the fight over what to call the task force, crime enforcement or immigration enforcement, is only getting started.

Five Down Before Sunrise as Gunfire Rips Through Hickory Hill Shopping Plaza

(July 26 BenQQ) One of Memphis’s busiest commercial corridors endures a night of multiple shootings and challenging the argument crime is getting better.

Five people are nursing gunshot wounds after two separate shootings tore through a Hickory Hill shopping plaza in the predawn hours of Sunday, a reminder that Memphis's much-touted crime-decline statistics still leave real blood on real pavement. Memphis police were first called to a hospital just after 1:30 a.m. Sunday, where a man arrived by private vehicle with a gunshot wound tied to a shooting in the 6600 block of Winchester Road around 12:15 a.m. He was listed in critical condition.

Less than an hour later, at 2:14 a.m., officers were dispatched to a second shooting call in the same block of Winchester Road, where another man was taken to a hospital in non-critical condition. Three more men then showed up separately at area hospitals, also by private vehicle, saying they had been hurt at the same location — bringing the toll to five wounded on a single stretch of road before most of the city had finished its coffee.

Investigators have not said whether the two shootings are connected, though the tight timeline and shared address make coincidence a hard sell. WMC Action News 5 first reported the incidents Sunday morning, and no arrests have been announced as police continue to determine what set off the gunfire.

Eleven Guns, One Gas Station: Teens Charged After Cooper-Young Shootout

(followup to story below) Two Memphis teenagers are facing decades in prison after police say they helped turn a Cooper-Young gas station into a shooting gallery, spraying gunfire in a neighborhood residents pay a premium to call safe. Officers responding to a shots-fired call at the Marathon station on New York Street and Oliver Avenue just before 9 p.m. Thursday found a scene Memphis police described as eleven armed people — seven inside the store, four more outside — trading fire before scattering into the night. Remarkably, no one was hit.

Surveillance footage did what witnesses on the scene apparently would not: it gave investigators a face. Police identified 19-year-old Rodderius Shambley as one of the shooters, then tracked him and 18-year-old Marcus Jones to the 1600 block of South Cooper Street the next day and took both into custody without incident, according to WMC Action News 5 and independently confirmed by FOX13 Memphis.

Shambley and Jones were each charged with five counts of attempted second-degree murder, five counts of employing a firearm during a dangerous felony, and reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon — charges that reflect not just the shots fired but the number of bystanders standing near them when the shooting started.

That eleven armed people could converge on a neighborhood convenience store on a weeknight, open fire, and walk away clean until a camera caught up with them says plenty about how normalized armed confrontation has become in pockets of this city. Two arrests this week will not be the last word on who else was standing in that parking lot with a loaded gun.

Driver Vanishes After Mowing Down Orange Mound Pedestrian, Leaving Him Fighting for Life

A man is fighting for his life at a Memphis hospital after a driver struck him and kept going, leaving police with a hit-and-run case and a neighborhood with one more reason to distrust strangers behind the wheel. Officers responded just after 5:30 a.m. Saturday to a pedestrian crash at Deadrick Avenue and Raymond Street in Orange Mound, where they found the victim in critical condition. He was rushed to the hospital, and Memphis police said the driver never stopped.

WREG independently confirmed the man's critical condition and the driver's flight from the scene, noting the crash is one of several pedestrian hit-and-runs Memphis police have investigated in the Orange Mound area in recent months.

No description of the vehicle or driver has been released. Police are asking anyone with information to call CrimeStoppers at 901-528-CASH — a tip line Memphis leans on again and again because a department stretched thin keeps generating cases faster than it can close them.

Massive Rolling Cooper-Young Gunfight Reported Friday Continues the Crime Wave in Progressive Midtown

(7.25.26 BenQQ) A massive and rolling gun battle involving two coordinated groups of armed people erupted Thursday night at a Cooper-Young convenience store before spilling onto a residential street, sending rifle fire into parked vehicles and leaving residents stunned that such violence had reached their Midtown neighborhood.

Memphis police responded shortly after 9 p.m. to the Pride Mart on East Parkway. Store surveillance showed approximately seven armed individuals getting out of a tan Buick Rainier and entering the business. A second group arrived in a black Nissan Altima. Police said one person approached the store, apparently recognized the people inside, returned to the Altima and alerted the others. Three more armed people then got out.

The people inside the store apparently realized that the second armed group was waiting outside. Both sides drew their weapons and began exchanging gunfire, according to police. The fighting continued as participants fled in several directions, spreading onto New York Street and toward Oliver Avenue. Police recovered spent rifle casings, while bullets struck the store and at least four vehicles. No injuries were reported, no arrests had been made and police had not publicly identified any of the participants.

Police called them “two armed groups,” but had not identified them as gangs or disclosed any group affiliation. Nevertheless, this was plainly not a spontaneous dispute between two isolated individuals. Both sides arrived together in vehicles, carried multiple firearms, appeared to recognize one another and acted collectively when the shooting started.

That does not prove gang membership. It does, however, raise an obvious question: Were these organized gang members, neighborhood crews or other affiliated groups settling an existing dispute?

Until Memphis police identify the participants and establish a motive, the answer remains unknown. The coordinated behavior makes possible gang or crew involvement a reasonable subject for investigation, but it should not be reported as a confirmed fact.

The gun battle follows several other serious violent incidents reported this year in Cooper-Young, Crosstown and the surrounding Midtown area:

• July 14 — Two men shot at Crosstown Burger King: Police responded to the Burger King at 1330 Poplar Avenue after two men were shot. One was initially reported in critical condition and the other was expected to recover. Police detained two men, but officials had not disclosed what caused the shooting.
• May 5 — Two bystanders shot inside OUTMemphis: Police said an argument inside the Cooper Street organization escalated when a suspect pulled a gun and threatened to shoot another person. Two female bystanders were struck, including one who remained in critical condition the following day. Police arrested Aljon Tyler, who was charged with three counts of attempted second-degree murder and possessing a weapon during a dangerous felony.
• May 17 — Armed juveniles threaten 73-year-old man: Police said four juveniles confronted Nick Canterucci on York Avenue near East Parkway. Two allegedly pointed guns at him, and one reportedly warned, “We will be back for you.” Canterucci told police that one of the armed children may have been as young as 9. No arrests had been announced when the incident was reported.

The latest violence was particularly disturbing because of its size and apparent organization. This was not a single gunman firing several shots and running away. Police described two armed groups confronting each other, with approximately seven armed people connected to one vehicle and at least four people associated with the other. It remains unclear how many actually fired weapons.

Residents said the gunfire moved from the convenience store into their residential street. One neighbor said he dropped to the floor as the shots came closer. Another said home surveillance showed a vehicle passing while someone fired from it and armed young men running through the neighborhood.

“I just don’t want the crime to come flooding this way, because it’s never been in Midtown like that,” resident Robert Jefferson told Action News 5.

Cooper-Young is promoted as one of Midtown’s diverse, arts-oriented neighborhoods, known for restaurants, entertainment, independent businesses and community events. But residents must now confront a problem already familiar across much of Memphis: heavily armed people apparently willing to turn public streets and occupied neighborhoods into battlegrounds.

Midtown is also home to Tamboli’s Pasta & Pizza, where owner Miles Tamboli recently refused service to four uniformed National Guard members assigned to the Memphis Safe Task Force. Defending his decision, Tamboli said, “I love this country and I love this city, and that is exactly why I made this call. I want Memphis to be safe…. What the Task Force has actually done is make this city harder to live in.” Some residents might respond that armed criminals—not the National Guard members sent to help restore public safety—are what make Memphis harder to live in.

The political question is whether repeated violence will change how residents of traditionally progressive Midtown judge city leadership, policing and criminal-justice policies. There is no public evidence yet of a conservative political shift caused by these incidents. But when residents who once considered their neighborhoods comparatively insulated begin ducking rifle fire and finding bullet holes in vehicles, public attitudes toward police staffing, prosecution, juvenile crime and gang enforcement can change quickly.

For now, the most urgent questions remain unanswered: Who were the two armed groups? Why did they recognize each other? Were they affiliated with gangs or neighborhood crews? Where did the rifles come from? And how can so many armed participants escape without a single immediate arrest?

Marshals Task Force Runs Down Fugitive Wanted for Sexually Exploiting a Child

The U.S. Marshals Service's Two Rivers Violent Fugitive Task Force arrested Craig Nakutis at his Jackson, Tennessee apartment Wednesday, closing out a Shelby County Grand Jury indictment charging him with especially aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor, solicitation of a minor and aggravated statutory rape, Action News 5 reports.

The arrest followed a Memphis Police Department investigation and capped a hunt that ended at Nakutis' door at the Cherry Grove Apartments — the kind of case that rarely draws headlines outside a short police blotter item, but represents exactly the sort of predator-off-the-street outcome federal task force resources in Memphis are supposed to deliver.

No further hearing date has been publicly scheduled. The case now moves to Shelby County courts, where prosecutors will pursue the indictment secured before Nakutis' arrest.

MSCS Goes Door-to-Door as State Takeover Threat Looms Over Absentee Kids

Memphis-Shelby County Schools sent leaders and attendance staff walking door-to-door this week through neighborhoods with the district's worst chronic absenteeism, an admission that mandates from the front office haven't gotten enough kids back in their seats. The canvassing push, reported by Chalkbeat Tennessee, lands as Tennessee Republicans continue to cite chronic absenteeism as a chief justification for a state takeover of the district.

District officials say absenteeism ticked down for the first time since 2017, the first bit of daylight in a numbers fight that will help decide whether Nashville strips local control from MSCS before the new school year starts next month.

The attendance push comes weeks after the state comptroller's final forensic audit of MSCS found roughly $54.2 million in transactions consistent with fraud, waste or abuse, plus another $65.1 million in transactions that violated district policy — nearly $120 million in questionable spending on Superintendent Roderick Richmond's watch.

Richmond has pointed to a new "corrective action plan" and promises of tighter contract oversight as evidence the district can fix itself without state intervention. Whether a modest attendance dip and a promised paperwork overhaul are enough to satisfy lawmakers in Nashville is the question hanging over the district as classrooms reopen.

DA Clears DEA Agent in Burger King Shooting

Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy released three security videos Wednesday from inside a Frayser Burger King showing the moment a Drug Enforcement Administration agent assigned to the Memphis Safe Task Force fatally shot employee Darrin Pigram, 41, while serving him an arrest warrant in May. The release, detailed by ABC News, came two days after Mulroy announced he would not pursue charges against the agent.

Task Force agents told investigators Pigram grew "visually and verbally aggressive" and tried to force the employee door shut on them before the agent opened fire. The DEA says Pigram reached for a gun in his waistband. Pigram's family disputes that account entirely, maintaining he was unarmed and shot in the back.

Mulroy's own letter clearing the agent reportedly acknowledged the restaurant video contradicted parts of the agents' story — a detail that hasn't stopped the DA from closing the case. Mulroy's declination isn't legally final — double jeopardy doesn't attach until a trial starts, so the state could still reopen the case on new evidence, and neither Mulroy's decision nor a federal review (which remains an open question) forecloses Pigram's family from pursuing a wrongful-death suit on a far lower burden of proof.

DA Releases Video of Federal Task Force Killing Burger King Worker — Unresolved Question Remains

(7.23.26 BenQQ) The Shelby County District Attorney's Office released surveillance footage Wednesday of a DEA agent fatally shooting a Frayser Burger King employee during a Memphis Safe Task Force arrest. None of the released video shows Darrin Pigram reaching for or holding the gun agents said justified the shooting.

Pigram, 41, was killed May 13 as task force agents moved to arrest him at the Burger King where he worked, on outstanding charges of aggravated assault, aggravated burglary and employing a firearm during a felony.

The Shelby County District Attorney's Office says agents told Pigram why they were there and shot him based on his criminal history and their account that he reached for a weapon at his waistband. No body-worn camera footage exists; the three clips released, ranging from 15 to 45 seconds, come entirely from restaurant surveillance cameras.

None of the three videos shows Pigram reaching for a gun in his waistband, as the agents alleged, and none shows him holding or displaying a weapon at any point. Restaurant equipment blocks the camera's view of key moments, and none of the clips has audio.

One angle shows an agent pushing Pigram backward out of frame; a second shows kitchen employees ducking as flashes of light appear from behind equipment, then Pigram stepping backward and collapsing; a third shows Pigram falling near the drive-through window as an agent approaches with a handgun drawn, according to Tennessee Lookout, which reviewed and described all three clips. The DA's office has not released a video showing the actual moment shots were fired.

So the unresolved Question remains: Was Pilgram reaching for a gun when he was shot?

The two sides disagree, and the public record doesn't settle it.

The DA's declination letter states DEA Agent Levy Blandon's use of force was justified by Pigram's "sudden decision to reach for his concealed weapon" — so Mulroy's official finding asserts Pigram was armed. But it's unclear whether a gun was actually recovered from the scene. Pigram's family and their attorney, André Wharton, say they're still seeking "clear answers on the firearm, if one was recovered, including where it was recovered from" — meaning even they don't have confirmation a weapon was found. The family separately maintains Pigram was unarmed and shot in the back.

The released surveillance video doesn't resolve it either: none of the three clips shows him holding, reaching for, or displaying a gun, but key moments are blocked by kitchen equipment or occur off-camera.

So as it stands: officials assert he was armed, no video confirms it, and no source has confirmed publicly whether a weapon was ever recovered from him or the scene. That gap — whether a gun was actually found — is the live question in this story, not a settled fact either way.

District Attorney Steve Mulroy announced Monday his office would not prosecute the agent who fired the fatal shot. Pigram's family disputes the agents' account entirely, maintaining he was unarmed and shot in the back. Attorney André Wharton, who represents the family, said the footage "raises serious questions and concerns about the entire unfolding of events" and does not substantiate "some of the critical contentions asserted by the arresting officers." Prosecutors met privately with the family to show them the footage before releasing it publicly.

Watch the released kitchen-angle video here: VIDEO-1_-Kitchen_Wed-May-13-2026.mp4 (graphic content warning).

Convicted Robber Carjacks DoorDash Driver at Gunpoint Outside East Memphis Chili's

(7.23.26 BenQQ) A food delivery driver was dragged across a Poplar Avenue parking lot on July 20 after a convicted felon pointed a gun at him and stole his car — a case Memphis police say ended in an arrest, but only after the damage was done. Brooks was arrested the next day at a gas station at Holmes and Crumpler, still driving the stolen car. Police say Brooks has a prior robbery conviction from 2002, for which he served 10 years in prison.

According to an arrest affidavit obtained by Action News 5, the DoorDash driver left his vehicle running outside the Chili's Bar & Grill at Poplar Avenue and Perkins Extended while he ran inside for an order. When he came back out, 57-year-old Bobby Brooks was sitting in the driver's seat.

When the driver confronted him, Brooks allegedly pointed a black handgun at him and tried to drive off anyway, dragging the victim roughly 40 feet to the parking lot entrance before letting go.

Brooks now faces charges of carjacking, employing a firearm during the commission of a dangerous felony, and being a convicted felon in possession of a handgun — the last charge tied directly to his 2002 robbery conviction.

The victim was not seriously injured.

Gunman Vanishes After South Parkway Shooting Leaves Another Memphian Dead

(7.22.26 BenQQ) A man is dead and his killer is still loose after a shooting outside a South Memphis convenience store left police with more questions than arrests. Local 24 reports officers responding to a shots-fired call at County Line Express Market on South Parkway East found a male victim with a gunshot wound around 6 p.m. Tuesday.

The victim was rushed to Regional One Hospital in critical condition, where he later died, becoming the latest entry on a homicide count that has already climbed past 80 for the year, according to the Memphis Homicide Tracker. The Memphis Police Department says the shooter fled east on Latham Street and remains unidentified, with no arrests announced as of this report.

This is exactly the kind of street-level violence the federally backed Memphis Safe Task Force was sent in to stop. Nine months and roughly 10,600 arrests into its operation, the task force, a coalition of the FBI, DEA, IRS, CBP, ICE, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, Tennessee Highway Patrol, Memphis Police Department and the Tennessee National Guard, has driven down some categories of crime, according to the Washington Examiner. A dead man outside a South Memphis market says the job is nowhere close to finished.

Memphis police are asking anyone with information to call CrimeStoppers at 901-528-CASH. No suspect description has been released.

City Hall's Civil War: Council Chair and Fired Aide Trade Ethics Complaints on the Taxpayer's Dime

(7.22.26 Update from previous related story, BenQQ) Memphis City Hall's ethics mess has grown too toxic for the city's own lawyer to touch, forcing taxpayers to fund an outside investigator to sort out dueling misconduct claims between Council Chairwoman Jana Swearengen-Washington and her ousted chief administrator. City Attorney Tannera Gibson recused herself from the matter and hired independent counsel Brian Faughnan, who has authority to refer findings to law enforcement, according to Fox13 Memphis.

The feud traces to a May 26 letter from attorney Brooke Hyman, the council's former chief administrator, accusing Swearengen-Washington of misusing council funds, including buying 100 copies of Kamala Harris's book "107 Days" and keeping several for personal use, and pressuring staff to donate to her husband's church. Hyman was fired a week after sending that letter, a move her allies call retaliation, according to the Daily Memphian.

Swearengen-Washington has answered with her own complaint, accusing Hyman of using a personal Costco membership for city-funded purchases and racking up chronic attendance and timekeeping violations. The city has confirmed the investigation extends to at least one more staffer, administrator Ashleigh Hayes, while Councilman JB Smiley has publicly said he is not a target, per WREG.

Memphis taxpayers are now bankrolling a private attorney to referee a personnel brawl among elected officials, an expense that would not exist if City Hall policed its own conduct. Whether Faughnan's findings stay a political sideshow or land on a prosecutor's desk is the only question that matters now.

Broken AC, Burst Pipes, 68 Dead Since 2018: Shelby County's Jail Is Falling Apart and Mayor Harris Won't Say How Bad

(7.22.26 Update from previous related story, BenQQ) Inmates and staff collapsed from heat inside a Shelby County jail that Mayor Lee Harris has still not formally ordered assessed, even as county commissioners escalate demands for action on a facility they say is crumbling by the week. The Shelby County Sheriff's Office confirmed 14 inmates and five staff members were treated for heat-related symptoms, with one inmate hospitalized, after the air conditioning failed at the Criminal Justice Center, known locally as 201 Poplar.

That breakdown followed a separate water main break that flooded the building and forced Shelby County's General Sessions Criminal Courts to shut down entirely, according to WREG. Commissioner Mick Wright sent Harris a letter on June 30 demanding a formal request for qualifications to assess the building; Commissioner Charlie Caswell followed with his own letter on July 10 to both Harris and Sheriff Floyd Bonner after commissioners said the mayor had not responded, per Action News 5.

The stakes reach well past broken thermostats. The jail has logged 68 in-custody deaths since 2018, and Shelby County judges have separately declined to join an effort aimed at easing the overcrowding that critics say compounds every other failure at the facility, according to Local 24. Thirty-five state inmates have already been shipped to state custody, leaving roughly 95 behind in a building officials themselves describe as understaffed and structurally deteriorating.

A county government that cannot keep the air conditioning running or the pipes intact in its own jail is asking Memphis residents to trust it with far bigger responsibilities. Mayor Harris has not publicly committed to the outside assessment commissioners are demanding.

One final thing to think about, will this be the cause of the next lawsuit brought by yet another barracuda attorney against the city for “cruel and unusual punishment” for incarceration in a broken hot box? Will voters remember who the officials were during this sorry mess?

She’s Fake! AOC Rolls Into Memphis, Rolls Out a New Accent, Rolls Up the Ridicule

(7.21.26 BenQQ) A congresswoman from the Bronx stood on a Memphis stage last week and suddenly sounded like she grew up two exits from Graceland — and the internet noticed before she finished her sentence. You could say it was worse than when Hilary Clinton co-opted an urban black accent and screeched to a clapping crowd of seals,  “I don’t feel no ways tired. I come too far from where I started from..." Until AOC or perhaps Kamala Harris (below) it was the cringiest of fakers and still further cringe was the apparent acceptance without question from Memphis Democrats.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez headlined a "Get Out the Vote" rally on July 17 at New Direction Christian Church for congressional candidate Justin Pearson, another Dem candidate that has changed his stage persona for gullible Democrats who apparently expect nothing more from candidates other than they sound like them. Joined by Reps. Ayanna Pressley and Summer Lee, it was the first day of early voting in Shelby County's August 6 primary, and the rally drew the kind of national progressive firepower Memphis Democrats have leaned on before.

What actually traveled beyond the room was the accent. Fox News reported Ocasio-Cortez was accused online of adopting a Southern drawl for the occasion, with critics drawing an unflattering comparison to Kamala Harris's own accent-shifting moments on the trail. The clip spread fast precisely because it fit a pattern voters already suspect: national figures parachute into Memphis, try to perform authenticity for a night, then leave.

Memphis doesn't need a borrowed accent from Manhattan by way of the Bronx to explain its problems. It needs leaders who show up on the other 364 days of the year, not just the one with cameras and an early-voting deadline attached.

By the way, when did you ever hear Donald Trump perform such a fake stunt when he was speaking before Southern crowd?

Memphis Police Sweep Nets 60 Guns, 15,000 Pills, 208 Felons — While Washington Wants Credit Too

Two hundred forty-six people are off Memphis streets, 60 illegal guns are out of circulation, and shootings fell across the city this summer because the Memphis Police Department ran a monthlong operation that did what City Hall's critics said couldn't be done: made the city safer without a task force press conference every week.

MPD's Organized Crime and Multi-Agency Gang units spent June running "Operation Pressure Point," a targeted sweep aimed at violent offenders, illegal weapons and drug trafficking networks. The haul: 208 felony arrests out of 246 total, more than 15,000 pills seized alongside fentanyl and marijuana, and over $51,000 in drug cash confiscated, according to Action News 5.

The local operation lands alongside a much larger federal push. Fox News reports the Trump administration's surge of federal resources into Memphis produced more than 1,700 arrests in its first month, including 126 known gang members, 293 firearms seized, and roughly seven dozen missing children located in a Justice Department-led effort. Attorney General Pam Bondi credited the surge with putting gang members behind bars and rescuing children who had fallen through the cracks. The city's own dashboard shows serious crime down 46 percent since the effort began.

None of this happened by accident, and none of it happened because Memphis leadership demanded it first. It happened because Washington sent people and money, and MPD's own units did the unglamorous work of showing up every night for a month. The lesson for a city that led the nation in violent crime as recently as 2024 is not complicated: enforcement works when someone actually enforces.

Tennessee Points to $53 Million in School Fraud as It Fights to Retake Memphis' Failing District

On July 15, the Office of the Tennessee Attorney General filed motions in federal court to dismiss a lawsuit brought by Shelby County Government and the Memphis-Shelby County Schools Board of Education, and to dissolve the temporary restraining order that has kept the state's takeover of the district on ice since July 1. The state's argument is blunt: a forensic audit of MSCS has turned up $53 million in suspected financial abuse, and that is exactly the kind of mismanagement the legislature created a Board of Managers to fix.

The nine-member board — five appointed by Gov. Bill Lee, two each by the House and Senate speakers — was set to assume full control of the district on July 1. U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw Jr. blocked that transfer hours later with a temporary restraining order, siding for now with the elected school board's claim that the takeover law is unconstitutional because it strips authority from officials Memphis voters chose.

Here is the problem with that argument: voters did not choose the financial results MSCS has produced. A $53 million abuse finding is not a paperwork technicality — it is taxpayer and federal grant money that was supposed to educate children and instead vanished into a system with too little oversight and too much comfort with the status quo. The elected board's lawsuit protects incumbency, not students. If Tennessee has the receipts, a federal judge should let the audit, not procedural stalling, decide who runs a district that has failed Memphis kids for a generation.

A preliminary injunction hearing is next, and it could take months to resolve. Until then, the elected board stays in charge of a district under a cloud the state says it can prove with dollar figures.

Memphis Council Chair Accused of Shaking Down Staff for Church Money, Buying 100 Kamala Harris Books With Public Funds

FOX13 Memphis obtained two dueling ethics complaints this month that lay bare a Memphis City Council at war with itself. The first, dated May 26 and sent by attorney to City Attorney Allan Wade, comes from Brooke Hyman, the council's former chief administrator. Hyman alleges Council Chairwoman Jana Swearengen-Washington tried to use council discounts to book event space for a January visit by former Vice President Kamala Harris, then purchased 100 copies of Harris's book "107 Days" through the publisher using council funds — keeping a number of the copies for herself. Hyman also claims Swearengen-Washington pressured staff to contribute cash or checks to a fundraiser for her husband's church, "NED Ministers' Spouses," and that former council chair JB Smiley Jr. asked the city's chief administrative officer to help hire Swearengen-Washington's niece into an IT job in 2025. Hyman says she was fired one week after filing her complaint.

Swearengen-Washington did not sit still. On July 13 she filed her own ethics complaint against Hyman, alleging city purchases were routed through Hyman's personal Costco membership at taxpayer expense and that Hyman's attendance records show a suspicious pattern of Friday and Monday absences.

The City of Memphis confirmed City Attorney Tannera Gibson has recused herself and hired outside counsel, attorney Brian Faughnan, to sort it out — including whether to hand the matter to law enforcement. Smiley says the investigation "has nothing to do with" him.

Whatever the outcome, the pattern is familiar: public money treated as a personal slush fund, a whistleblower fired for speaking up, and a city government that only calls in outside counsel after a reporter starts asking questions. Memphis taxpayers deserve council members who treat every dollar as borrowed from the people who earned it — not a line of credit for a colleague's church fund or a former vice president's book tour.

Memphis City Council Chair Fired the Staffer Who Caught Her Spending City Money on Kamala Harris Books

Documents obtained by the Daily Memphian show the former chief administrator of the Memphis City Council, Brooke Hyman, raised written concerns in May that Council Chairwoman Jana Swearengen-Washington used city resources and staff to benefit herself and her husband's church, and used city funds to purchase 100 copies of Kamala Harris's book "107 Days" — then kept a number of those copies for personal use. Hyman was fired one week after filing the complaint.

Swearengen-Washington is not the only council member facing scrutiny. A separate Daily Memphian report shows council member JB Smiley Jr. was named in a May letter urging city administration to hire the chairwoman's niece into the city's IT division. Smiley has said publicly he is not the subject of an ethics investigation. Meanwhile, the City of Memphis confirmed it is investigating potential ethics violations involving two sitting council members.

A chairwoman using taxpayer dollars to stock a political memoir for her own shelf, a colleague pushing a relative onto the public payroll, and a whistleblower fired for saying so out loud — this is what unaccountable one-party rule at Memphis City Hall looks like up close. It should not take a leaked personnel file to surface conduct like this.

‍The “Leadership Class” Has to Step Up and Put Memphis in Motion-We Want Leaders to Work as Hard as Trump

TSD Memphis reports Leadership Tennessee selected seven Shelby County residents, including AutoZone's Adam Christopher and MIFA's incoming president Dorcas Young Griffin, for its 13th statewide Signature Program class.

That dutifully reported, we’d like to know: Aside from congregating and posing for a photo op, how will any of these individual leaders perform in a way that will take Memphis out of a previous rut that has turned into a ditch.

Know these facts and ask every politician and leader: About 40% of Tennessee students are proficient in reading and math, but in Memphis only 24.6% are proficient in ELA—English language arts, which includes reading and writing—and only 21.2% are proficient in math. Now add those results to a Memphis-Shelby County Schools administration targeted for state takeover because of allegations of poor governance, financial mismanagement and persistently weak academic performance. We also have a decline in population while the state is gaining in population overall. Fewer local businesses were established than were closed. A high crime rate plagues the city like a virus. Despite all this that should be on everybody’s lips, only 55% of Shelby County voters cast ballots in 2024 for candidates that were lackluster at best.

So we ask: where is the leader or group of leaders who will take control of a flailing ship and correct its course despite politics? We don’t need more good looking plebes in suits but people who are willing to work as hard as Trump to put this city back in shape.

As One Who Got Censored by the Woke Right, My Personal Response to Trump's Speech-Are Democrats Willing to Hold Power at the Expense of the Nation?

(7.18.16 BenQQ Commentary) As more facts come out from President Trump's speech, an evolving realization is hitting many Americans — including some honest Democrats. What price is your party willing to pay to hold onto power when foreign enemies try to undermine our elections?

One example of Democrats stepping away or speaking out include former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who broke with the party over such issues, and others questioning the extremes. (See her shift here.) This isn't about party loyalty anymore. It's about saving our country.

Democrats throughout Biden’s term mounted numerous propaganda assaults on the minds of Americans. One of the most outrageous was Biden’s standing in 2022 before Independence Hall–one of America’s most recognized locations for all citizens.

For his speech Biden looked like he had been propped up like an aging South American dictator before America's Independence Hall that was lit blood red with US military personnel used in the background as political props. Biden went on to declare MAGA and Trump were dangerous. It looked blatantly fascist and was a demagogic display that at the time caused criticism from only conservative media.

People who had not been paying attention back then are finally just beginning to realize how dangerous Biden and the Democrat power complex still are to the country.

That complex includes Biden himself, other politicians, legacy media, foreign governments, Hollywood movies and celebrities, government agencies, institutions, big business from high tech to public schools with radical educational consultants.

All that built an impromptu social network to bring down America. Thanks in large part to liberal podcasters and legacy media, social theorists of the future will point to the dotted lines connecting all of the Democrat power complex elements together-all pushing the woke agenda that was designed to keep Trump out of office.

And then there’s the massive flood of millions of  illegal aliens that still pose a threat to American democracy. Democrats want to make them voters as soon as possible. They will never be completely removed. Biden injected a poison political blob that was unvetted and unrecognized into the American voting environment.

This alien blob will continue to cause higher taxes and stress all government services from education to military defense. If you are a Democrat, you probably voted for it. Democrats don’t care. But your kids will. Let that sink in.

It’s not the point of this piece to go into details about all that. It is the point to remind everyone that what Trump talked about Thursday night was already well known if not proven.

Let’s not forget Biden himself used the term “The Big Lie” to describe Donald Trump’s claim the 2020 presidential election was stolen. The term was repeated everywhere by both Democrat and RINO seals. All the while, Biden’s officials were out there calling that election “the most secure” in American history.

It’s hard to break down intransigent beliefs propped up by fraudulent media, but Trump has smashed through the gate and crossed the moat. There will be more brick walls to crumble before his term ends–and hopefully his successor will make permanent his accomplished and pending reforms.

Outrageous Betrayal: How Arrogant Media Elites and Biden Officials Hid the Theft of Our Election Data – And Why Trump's Speech Exposes the Scandal

While Molly Ball at Newsweek smugly wrote how she and her cohorts “saved the election” real Americans watched in suspicion that Americans would actually vote in large numbers for Joe Biden, the man who campaigned from a basement. My video calling out that arrogant, outrageous claim got banned on YouTube – classic censorship – but you can find my video Rumble now. Enough is enough. President Trump's recent primetime speech lays it all out, and it should make every honest person furious.

Trump spoke with fire and released declassified documents showing shocking problems in our elections. He pointed to how China grabbed huge amounts of American voter data. Officials knew about dangers to voting machines but hid it. This isn't some wild theory – it's backed by government papers now out in the open.

Hard Numbers That Should Shock You

Here are key facts from the reports and Trump's speech:

• China stole voter data on a massive scale: China got about 220 million U.S. voter files. These included names, addresses, phone numbers, and party info. This started around the 2020 election cycle. It was called one of the biggest election data thefts ever.
• Blue states hit hard: Reports point to problems and data grabs in places like Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin, Arizona, and other Democrat-leaning areas. Trump and the documents highlight how these states had issues with voter rolls and possible manipulation. Democrats don’t care if popular trust in elections are undermined. They just want to win.
• Voting machines are wide open to attack: U.S. intelligence knew machines and ballot systems could be hacked by countries like China, Russia, Iran, and others. Documents show vulnerabilities in centralized systems. Foreign actors had and still have the tools to mess with them.

Mike Lindell, the MyPillow guy, showed years ago that it was possible to track ballots electronically. He hired computer and internet experts and said they followed votes back to foreign countries, including China. His efforts faced huge pushback, lawsuits, and censorship, but he kept fighting to prove the machines could be rigged. Now, years later, the government seems to validate at least Lindell’s theory.

Biden officials and intelligence people hid all this from Trump and the public. They knew about the risks and the data theft but didn't sound the alarm loud enough. Trump said they kept him in the dark while claiming the election was the "most secure ever." That's not just wrong – it's an insult to every voter. Even DNI Tulsi Gabbard's office a year ago highlighted serious vulnerabilities in electronic voting systems and pushed for better protections like paper ballots, confirming what many had warned about. Read more on Gabbard's findings here.

This makes Molly Ball’s boast that she and her friends "saved the election" look even more ridiculous and insulting. They celebrated stopping Trump while ignoring real threats from China and weak voting systems. No wonder my video got yanked from YouTube. They didn’t want you hearing the other side.

Here Are Trump’s Election-Security Solutions

I’ve broken them down in bullet points to make them as clear as possible:

• Pass the SAVE America Act. Trump’s central demand was for Congress—particularly the Senate—to pass the election legislation. He closed his speech by calling for its approval. The White House SAVE America Act page contains the administration’s proposed requirements.

(My comment: Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan recently said the SAVE America Act would make it harder for Democrats to win elections. Her argument was that its identification and citizenship-document requirements would prevent some eligible Democratic-leaning voters from registering or voting. Here is the Fox News report on Slotkin’s statement. )

• Require identification before voting or registering. Trump called for enforceable voter-identification requirements rather than relying primarily on voters to certify their own eligibility. The White House proposal calls for a valid ID before registering to vote in a federal election.
• Require documentary proof of U.S. citizenship. Applicants registering for federal elections would have to produce documents showing that they are citizens—not merely check a citizenship box. The proposed legislation is officially titled the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or SAVE Act. Read the proposed legislation and White House summary.
• Remove identified noncitizens from voter rolls. Trump wants states required to compare voter-registration records with citizenship information and remove registrations determined to belong to noncitizens. The administration’s position is that only American citizens should decide American elections.
• Restrict mass mail-in voting. The expanded White House proposal would prohibit most mail-in ballots while preserving exceptions for illness, disability, military service or travel. Trump argues that most voters should cast ballots in person.
• Stop counting ballots that arrive after Election Day. Trump criticized states that accept late-arriving mail ballots and take weeks to finish their official counts. His preferred rule is that late-arriving ballots should not be counted, although the speech did not spell out how military and overseas ballots would be treated.
• Use paper ballots and stronger chain-of-custody protections. Trump argued that elections should not depend entirely on electronic systems. The administration pointed to countries that use paper ballots and said the United States needs stronger physical records and controls that allow results to be checked independently.
• Investigate electronic voting systems state by state. Trump announced that the Department of Homeland Security would brief the public on alleged weaknesses in electronic voting equipment. He said officials were notifying political leaders about potential problems discovered in their states.
• Expose foreign access to American election information. Trump ordered the release of previously classified documents concerning China, Venezuela and other alleged foreign-election activities. The documents are being posted on the White House’s Election Integrity page. His proposed answer is greater disclosure rather than allowing intelligence findings to remain classified.
• Investigate whether intelligence was deliberately withheld or suppressed. Trump accused intelligence officials of concealing information regarding China’s acquisition of American voter data. His stated remedy was to release the records, identify who made the decisions and determine whether government officials improperly kept information from the president or the public.
• Order Justice Department investigations and prosecutions where crimes can be proved. Trump called for investigations of officials or other individuals responsible for illegal election conduct, destruction of records or concealment of evidence. He specifically raised documents allegedly found in “burn bags,” although his speech did not identify a completed criminal case or precise charges.
• Preserve election records instead of destroying them. Trump’s criticism of records allegedly prepared for destruction implies stricter retention, documentation and review of election-related intelligence and investigative materials before anything is discarded.
• Have federal agencies report election vulnerabilities publicly. Rather than simply declaring election systems secure, Trump called for DHS, intelligence agencies and other officials to disclose vulnerabilities and explain what corrections states must make.
• Pressure states to correct problems before the 2026 midterms. Trump said state political leaders were being informed of weaknesses and emphasized that the coming elections must be “honest.” His approach places immediate pressure on states to examine voter rolls, machines, counting procedures and cybersecurity before November 2026.

Americans deserve elections we can trust. Trump's speech and the documents prove we have work to do. We need strong fixes now – paper ballots where possible, clean voter rolls, and no more hiding the truth. The indignation is real because this wasn't just sloppy. It feels like a steal from the people.

What happened in 2020 damaged trust. We can't let it happen again. Read the documents yourself on the White House site and decide. Our republic depends on fair votes, not hidden hacks or media spin.

Links for more:

• Trump's speech and docs: White House Election Integrity
• Mike Lindell Absolute Proof video: Rumble link
• My critical video: Available on Rumble
• Tulsi Gabbard on voting machines: DNI findings video

The truth is coming out. Stay angry, stay informed, and demand better.

Family Demands Video as Activists Target Trump's Crime Task Force — Even as Arrests of Criminals and Illegal Aliens Top 10,000

(7.17.16 BenQQ) A grandfather is begging the city to release surveillance video, activists are demanding federal troops leave town. The Memphis Safe Task Force is defending a record of more than 10,000 arrests and nearly 1,700 illegal firearms pulled off Memphis streets since September.

The flashpoint is Tyrin Johnson, the 20-year-old shot and killed July 5 in downtown Memphis. Memphis Police say Johnson fled from task force officers responding to a shots-fired call, then turned toward Tennessee National Guard members with a handgun before two Guard soldiers opened fire.

Family and community organizers aren't buying the official account. At a balloon release held near 4th Street and Gayoso Wednesday evening, organizer Lucci Chambless claimed unreleased video contradicts Memphis Police Department's version of events. Johnson's grandfather, Evaniel Johnson, called on the city to release every camera angle from the scene. No video has been made public.

The activist group Free the 901 wants the task force's National Guard component gone entirely, and state Rep. Gabby Salinas has pushed Shelby County to explore legal action against Gov. Bill Lee over the deployment. Their case rests on the fact that Johnson's death is one of four fatal task force shootings since the operation launched under a presidential memorandum signed by President Trump last September.

What the activists leave out: U.S. Marshal Tyreece Miller says the task force has produced "unprecedented results" for a city long ranked among the nation's most violent — 10,017 arrests, including 92 for homicide and 105 for sex offenses, plus 154 missing children located. Memphis Police data shows violent crime down more than 40% and homicides down 44% in the first half of 2026 compared with last year. Judge the task force by outcomes, not by the loudest press conference.

Scandal-Soaked Democrats Open Early Voting Buried in Corruption Probes

Early voting opened Friday for the Aug. 6 election, and Shelby County Democrats are limping into it under the weight of an ethics rap sheet that political analyst Otis Sanford says has become impossible to spin. "It just doesn't look good for the Democratic Party right now," Sanford told WKNO Friday.

Accusations and scandals are piling up for the Democrats:

-Memphis City Council Chairwoman Jana Swearengen-Washington is now the subject of a formal ethics investigation after the council's former chief administrator alleged she pressured staff to donate to a church pastored by her husband, tried to use council discounts to help secure event space for a Kamala Harris visit, and helped steer a city IT job to her niece. The city has hired an outside attorney to investigate.

-Shelby County General Sessions Court Clerk Tami Sawyer faces a six-count federal indictment accusing her of embezzling $44,607 in taxpayer money for personal expenses — including alcohol and Uber Eats — funneled through a scheme using county procurement cards and a friend's PayPal account. She's pleaded not guilty and faces up to 20 years in prison.

-Former County Commissioner Edmund Ford Jr. pleaded guilty to tax evasion after depositing more than $250,000 in nonprofit grant money he'd steered into his own computer business. He resigned and is permanently barred from holding elected office in Tennessee — sentencing looms.

-Incoming Commissioner LaShanta Rudd — who won her seat unopposed — is accused by city auditors of spending over $10,000 in taxpayer grant money meant for her nonprofit on a personal car, home repairs and an iPad. Auditors want her barred from future grants and forced to repay the money.

Layer on a $54.2 million forensic audit finding potential fraud, waste and abuse at Memphis-Shelby County Schools, plus Sheriff's Office officials publicly blaming Mayor Lee Harris for a jail so poorly maintained that inmates were treated for heat exposure amid a diesel fuel leak and a dead fire alarm — and it's clear why Republicans are sharpening their knives. Democrat Mickell Lowery still holds a polling edge in the county mayor's race, but the pattern of mismanagement gives Republican challenger John DeBerry an opening he didn't have a month ago.

All this may give pause to some Democrats to continue their ususal lockstep voting and to make otherwise the passive Republicans to vote as if they have a chance to win in the August election. We’ll see.

Man Gunned Down Overnight in Southwest Memphis as Homicide Toll Keeps Climbing

A man is dead and a woman is in police custody after an overnight shooting in the Walker Homes neighborhood — a fresh reminder that even as officials tout falling crime numbers, gunfire is still ending lives in Memphis on an ordinary Thursday morning.

Memphis Police arrived at the 3000 block of Travis Road just before 2 a.m. Thursday and found the victim already dead at the scene. A woman was detained; police have not released the victim's identity, announced charges, or disclosed a motive as the investigation continues.

The killing lands against a backdrop of genuine, federally documented progress: Memphis Police data cited by the Memphis Safe Task Force shows homicides down 44% and violent crime down over 40% in the first half of 2026. Progress on a spreadsheet is cold comfort to a Southwest Memphis family burying a son this week. Both things are true at once, and Memphis residents deserve honesty about both.

Cohen's ICE Letter: Convenient Timing, Still No Answers on the Local Deaths That Prompted It

(7.15.16 BenQQ) Lame duck Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Memphis) fired off a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin on July 14, demanding use-of-force records, disciplinary files, and even asking whether Memphis Safe Task Force agents have ties to the Proud Boys or January 6. His stated reason: two Memphians killed by Task Force members — Tyrin Johnson, shot by Tennessee National Guard troops during a July 5 pursuit, and a suspect killed by a DEA agent during a July 8 hotel raid. Both cases remain open, unresolved investigations with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. No findings. No fault assigned. No timeline for either. Cohen's letter

Here's what the letter itself gives away: Cohen didn't write it the day Johnson died, or the day the DEA agent fired in that hotel room. He wrote it after a man was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Biddeford, Maine — nearly a thousand miles from Memphis — on July 13. "Just today, I learned of another individual shot by an ICE agent in Maine," Cohen's letter reads. "This is a matter of absolute urgency." CBS News confirms the Maine shooting happened the morning of July 13 — one day before Cohen's letter went out, and nine days after Johnson died in his own district.

My take: If two dead constituents weren't "urgent" enough to draw a letter for a week, but a shooting in Maine was enough to produce one within 24 hours, Memphians are owed an explanation for the gap — not a press release citing them as the headline act. TBI hasn't finished either local investigation, meaning Cohen is demanding disciplinary records and lobbing insinuations about agents' political affiliations before the facts of the Memphis cases are even in. That's not oversight. That's a retiring congressman riding a national news cycle out the door, with Memphis's dead used as the local hook.

Trump, for his part, reversed Mullin's brief nationwide pause on ICE traffic stops within 24 hours of it being ordered, calling the tool "important and effective" and directing agents to resume — undercutting the very policy shift Cohen's letter leaned on for urgency. We picked up Cohen’s letter from the Daily Memphian.

Trump's MSTF: a Flashpoint or Cause for a Thank You Card?

(7.15.26 BenQQ Commentary + Reporting) Some say Trump's implementation of his Safe Task Force in Memphis turned out to be a deadly liability. Others say it made the city safer. Trump either gets vilified or thanked. Before you jump in, we thought we'd put together some facts and stats outside of emotional liberal reporting that might help you make up your mind about this issue that will go on through the political season.

We scanned from local and regional media the shootings and deaths as a result of encounters variously with MSTF, DEA, HSI, Tennessee National Guard and Tennessee Highway Patrol. Here are the results of those killed and wounded after those encounters with reported reasons:

Killed (4):

• Darrin Pigram, 41 — May 13, 2026. Shot by a DEA agent at a Burger King while task force members served a warrant; TBI says Pigram reached for a weapon in his waistband.
• Jonah Neal, 25 — May 21, 2026. Shot by a Homeland Security Investigations agent responding to a call about an armed man threatening self-harm — reporting since indicates this was a mental health crisis.
• Tyrin Johnson, 20 — July 5, 2026. Shot by two Tennessee National Guard soldiers during a foot pursuit in downtown Memphis after he allegedly "turned toward" them with a weapon. Family disputes this account and has requested body-cam footage.
• Alfonso Ivy, 47 — July 8, 2026. Shot by a DEA agent while task force members served a drug warrant at an Extended Stay America on Poplar Ave. TBI's account says a single agent fired; U.S. Marshals' statement used the plural "task force members."

Wounded, non-fatal (4):

• Unnamed man — October 2025. Critically wounded after fleeing an attempted robbery; agents opened fire.
• Marquis Davis, 18 — Oct. 31, 2025 (Halloween). Shot by federal agents near Corky's on N. Germantown Pkwy. while reportedly fleeing, armed, from a robbery at the Exotic Smoke Shop.
• Unnamed person — December 2025. Struck by gunfire from a Tennessee Highway Patrol trooper during a traffic stop after the driver failed to pull over; listed in stable condition.
• Unnamed person — date not specified in reporting. This is the eighth incident, described by TBI only as "someone being run over" (not a shooting).

Four of the eight victims have not been publicly identified by name in any reporting I could find.

We found TBI provides a more precise tally with a single itemized tracking of incidents than other cities. Here is the search link we used: TBINewsroom.com search “Memphis Safe Task Force.” This link references the press releases for all the incidents mentioned in this article.

Further, ICE said it deported convicted criminals — including for arson, child sexual assault and murder — through the first week of July, with ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Executive Associate Director Marcos Charles noting officers were "on the job" through the Fourth of July holiday. Separately, the Trump administration is planning a new ICE holding facility near a Louisiana deportation-flight hub to speed processing of detainees awaiting removal, according to Fox News.

As a result of better access to encounter information, in comparison for example to DC or Chicago incidents that are scattered across separate local stories without a single official tally, Memphis ICE stats stand out and are easier to decipher. Under a 2015 memorandum of understanding between the Shelby County DA's office, Memphis Police, the Shelby County Sheriff's Office and TBI, fatal law enforcement shootings are referred by the DA to TBI for investigation.

Memphis by far has had the highest violent crime rate than any other city where Trump's Safe Task Force and other federal resources were deployed. Yet in raw incidents, Memphis is not worse in fatal or wounding encounters, regardless the headlines that make a rising incident account inevitable.

None of the MSTF use-of-force cases have been formally resolved by TBI or the DA. Every single one remains in the investigation or pre-charging stage.

That said, emotional political accusations that are sure to come from the upcoming AOC and Democratic visits (more elsewhere on this page) to Memphis to whip up votes should be taken with wise consumption.

92 Degrees at 201 Poplar: Inmates and Staff Overheat While Yale Educated Mayor Lee Harris and His Deans Scholar Sheriff Floyd Bonner Can’t Seem to Fix It

(7.11.26 BenQQ) So as you drive by 201 Poplar, the holding jail for people waiting trial with constitutional protections, you may think this big efficient looking government building is at least clean and minimally comfortable. However, if it’s a typical summer with outside heat hitting in the 90’s, you’d be wrong. So wrong.

Video obtained by FOX13 Memphis through a records request shows diesel fuel leaking from a generator directly into the jail's kitchen. Days later, temperatures inside the main Shelby County jail hit 92 degrees — twelve degrees above the legal limit under Tennessee law. Fourteen inmates required medical treatment, one was hospitalized, and five kitchen staff overheated on the job.

The Shelby County Sheriff's Office has publicly accused Mayor Lee Harris of ignoring life-threatening conditions at 201 Poplar for months. Harris, in turn, blames Sheriff Floyd Bonner for mismanaging the budget he was given. Chillers have since been brought in as a stopgap, but water and diesel leaks from the roof remain unresolved, according to Daily Memphian reporting on the "inhumane" conditions staff describe.

This is yet just another pin on the board of mismanagement and corruption ranging from county schools to alleged criminal issues involving elected officials.(Related stories below.) At some point the citizens of Memphis, Democrat and Republican alike, will demand adequate performance instead of being satisfied with politically based governance.

This is what happens when two elected officials spend more energy pointing fingers than fixing a building where human beings — convicted of nothing yet, in many cases, since this is a pretrial facility — are legally in the county's custody and legally owed a safe environme nt. Whoever is right about the budget fight, the diesel keeps leaking and the thermometer keeps climbing. Shelby County taxpayers pay for both a mayor and a sheriff specifically so problems like this get solved rather than litigated in press releases. And it doesn’t take a degree from an Ivy law school to accomplish it. Or is the county waiting to get sued before it does anything?

Forensic Audit Tracks With Convicted Teacher in MSCS

(7.10.26 BenQQ) The same week Memphis-Shelby County Schools absorbed a 667-page forensic audit cataloguing $54.2 million in spending flagged for potential fraud, waste or abuse, a federal lawsuit landed accusing the district of a different kind of failure — one that let a fourth-grade teacher keep abusing two nine-year-old girls for weeks after a mother handed administrators the evidence herself. Read side by side, the two stories describe the same district.

Comptroller Jason Mumpower's office released the audit on July 8, covering fiscal years 2021 through 2024. Beyond the dollar figures, the forensic team at CliftonLarsonAllen found a district that could not locate roughly 40 percent of the I-9 employment verification forms it tested, that cycled through three superintendents in three years — a churn the auditors said "eroded institutional knowledge" — and that ran "many critical processes... without formally documented, current, and standardized procedures," often with no single employee assigned to own them. Records, the report says, were kept "inconsistently and sometimes haphazardly."

That is the same institutional terrain described in a federal lawsuit filed this week in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee. According to the lawsuit, as reported by Action News 5 and fox13memphis.com, former Winchester Elementary teacher Kenneth Clay Jr. repeatedly sexually abused two fourth-grade students in the fall of 2022, pulling them from class or lunch to assault them and posting one child as a lookout while assaulting the other.

One victim's mother discovered a group chat describing the abuse, contacted police, notified a school counselor, emailed the district, and repeatedly tried to meet with then-principal James Patton. The suit alleges weeks passed with no meaningful response while the abuse continued. Clay resigned in December 2022 and was later convicted at trial of two counts of aggravated sexual battery. Patton, the suit notes, still runs Winchester Elementary today. His bio is on the Winchester Elementary School-Our Administrators Page.

The forensic audit never mentions the Clay case by name — the two documents are not formally connected. But the mechanism the lawsuit describes is exactly the failure modes the auditors documented: a complaint with nowhere defined to go, inside a district where process ownership was undocumented, personnel records were incomplete, and leadership turnover had gutted the institutional memory needed to catch a problem before it repeated.

Both stories are now colliding with the same unresolved question of who is actually in charge.

The nine-member state oversight board created to respond to the audit's findings was frozen by a federal judge on July 1, before it cast a single vote, pending a constitutional challenge from the district and Shelby County. Superintendent Roderick Richmond has 45 days from the audit's release to submit a corrective action plan. Winchester Elementary's principal has not been removed. Accountability, on both fronts, remains a promise rather than a fact.

MSCS School Board and Local Officials Sue to Block a Takeover the District's Audit-Documented Failures and the Board's Secret Meetings Helped Invite

(7.10.26 BenQQ) Released Wednesday, the state-ordered forensic audit of Memphis-Shelby County Schools seems to confirm what critics of the district's management have argued for years: a paper trail of waste dressed up as routine business. Comptroller Jason Mumpower's office says the 667-page review, covering fiscal years 2021 through 2024, identified more than $54 million in spending showing signs of fraud, waste or abuse — not isolated errors, Mumpower says, but "systemic failures" in how district leadership handled taxpayer money.

Nearly $48 million of that traces to a single custodial contract handed to ServiceMaster Clean. The district canceled the deal a year later after parents and staff complained the schools were filthy. A whistleblower had already flagged the contract internally, alleging kickbacks; the matter was referred to the FBI, and the auditors who wrote this report say they couldn't even verify how that investigation ended. Auditors from CliftonLarsonAllen also flagged another $65 million in spending that violated district policy without quite meeting the bar for fraud or abuse, pushing total questioned spending past $119 million.

The board suing to block the takeover isn't spotless on transparency, either. The same audit found board members trading emails with legal counsel outside publicly noticed meetings on matters including superintendent searches and contract negotiations, and at least one closed session that never made it into the board's official minutes — a pattern auditors said risks violating Tennessee's Open Meetings Act. That doesn't erase the board's argument for elected accountability. If anything, it's the reason voters, not Nashville, should be the ones enforcing it: a board that answers to constituents can be voted out for meeting in secret. A board appointed by the state cannot.

None of this stopped House Speaker Cameron Sexton from telling Memphis and Shelby County parents Wednesday to pressure the elected school board into dropping its lawsuit against the state's takeover. That's rich, coming from a legislature that spent a year building a nine-member oversight board that a federal judge froze before it cast a single vote. U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw Jr. blocked the board's authority on June 30, the night before its four-year term was set to begin, ruling that the county's constitutional challenge deserves a real hearing before Nashville hand-picks who runs a 100,000-student district.

The irony is that Mumpower's own audit makes the best case for accountability — the kind voters can act on directly, not a board appointed by a governor and two House speakers 200 miles away. Memphis taxpayers deserve to know exactly who signed off on a $48 million cleaning contract nobody wanted, and they deserve the power to remove whoever did. A state-appointed board with zero electoral accountability isn't a fix for that problem. It's a different version of the same one.

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Shelby County Is the Only County in Tennessee History to Have Its Budget Rejected — Then Mayor Lee Harris Went on TV and Said Nothing Was Wrong

The Tennessee Comptroller's Office confirmed to FOX13 Memphis what county officials would rather not say out loud: Shelby County is the only county among Tennessee's 95 to ever have a budget formally "Not Approved" by the state, and it has now submitted an incomplete budget for five consecutive years. Comptroller Jason Mumpower's office was blunt: "It is fair to say that Shelby County is the only county in Tennessee that has had a consistent problem, spanning five years, with its budget submission."

The exact reason for this year's rejection, according to the Comptroller's office, is procedural rather than a dispute over any single spending item: the FY2026 submission "was not presented in a manner that allowed for a clear and efficient review," as reported by WREG. That's the fifth straight year of incomplete filings, stretching back to FY2022. In the four years before this one, the county's budgets were only conditionally approved — some commissioners have said they believed those budgets had cleared without issue, but the Comptroller's letters each cited unmet conditions requiring additional information, as reported by Local Memphis.

Ahead of this year's cycle, the Comptroller's office had spelled out specific fixes the county needed to make for approval, including listing the county mayor's name and email on the budget's cover letter, providing a detailed line-item budget broken out by department for every fund in the resolution — including school funds — and supplying a cash flow forecast for any fund projected to end the year with less than a 15% cash balance. The FY2026 submission still fell short on those requirements.

The practical consequence: a "Not Approved" budget means Shelby County cannot issue debt financing without separate state approval, except in true emergencies — which is part of what makes the payroll episode below notable.

The dysfunction isn't just paperwork. On Nov. 12, 2025, county finance officials told commissioners the county risked a $43 million cash deficit within weeks because payroll alone runs more than $30 million a month. Commissioners approved $43 million in emergency funding days later. Yet Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris told FOX13 in a live interview that "there was no factual basis" for any payroll concern — directly contradicted by his own finance department's on-the-record testimony at a public meeting weeks earlier.

The bill for all this came due June 28-29, when the Shelby County Commission voted final approval on a property tax rate of $2.71 — an increase from the current $2.69, and higher than the rate the Comptroller's office had previously ordered cut. Commissioners also pulled back Harris's plan to begin building a new Treadwell K-8 school, diverting nearly $12 million from that project into deferred maintenance at existing Memphis-Shelby County Schools buildings instead.

Every dollar the county can't account for, and every emergency loan taken to cover a "non-emergency," is a dollar taxpayers front through higher property taxes. Five straight years of failure is not a paperwork glitch — it's a pattern, and taxpayers are the ones paying for it.

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No Rush to Judgment on the National Guard Shooting

(7.7.26 BenQQ) Tyrin Johnson is dead, and the Memphis Police Department has confirmed it won't release bodycam or Real-Time Crime Center footage from the shooting. That's a fair transparency question, and it deserves an answer. What it isn't is proof of guilt, cover-up, or the kind of unaccountable military occupation that national outlets and online activists have rushed to call it since Sunday. The account released so far, through the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, is that Johnson was armed, fled on foot, and turned toward the Guardsmen with a weapon before they fired. If that account holds up, it is a lawful use of force, full stop — and no amount of outside noise changes what happened on Ida B. Wells Avenue at 4 a.m.

Gov. Bill Lee's pledge, made when the Guard was first deployed, was that soldiers would carry weapons only "if requested" by law enforcement, as reported by FOX13 Memphis. Whether Memphis Police actually made that request in this case remains an open question — no agency, including MPD, the TBI, or the Guard itself, has confirmed it either way as of this writing. That gap should be closed. It is not, on its own, evidence that the rules were broken.

It's worth being precise about history here, because critics have reached for it clumsily. Guardsmen firing into a crowd of protesters, as happened at Kent State in 1970, is not what occurred in Memphis, and it isn't a realistic risk under how the Guard operates today. Modern rules of engagement govern individual soldiers responding to a specific, armed threat in the moment — not mass volleys into groups of civilians. Sunday's shooting, whatever else it turns out to show, was two soldiers responding to a man TBI says turned a handgun toward them, not an order to fire on a crowd.

That said, it is also worth being precise about what this shooting is and isn't. Since the current wave of Guard deployments began in 2025 — across Memphis, Washington, Los Angeles, Chicago, Portland, and New Orleans — this appears to be the first time Guard troops have actually fired their weapons and killed a civilian. The Memphis task force alone has been tied to four or five prior incidents serious enough to draw TBI scrutiny, but none of them involved Guardsmen discharging a weapon. That record matters, and it undercuts the narrative that armed soldiers have been running loose in American cities for the better part of a year. They hadn't, until Sunday — and one contested shooting, still under investigation, is not evidence of a pattern.

None of that erases the record of federal shootings elsewhere under this same broader enforcement push — an ICE agent shot and killed a woman in Minneapolis in January, and Border Patrol agents shot a woman in Chicago after saying their vehicle was rammed. Those were federal law enforcement agents, not National Guard troops, and conflating the two — as some coverage of the Memphis shooting has done — isn't just imprecise, it's the kind of category error that makes it harder to have an honest conversation about any of these incidents.

What critics calling this an occupation also leave out is the task force's actual record. The Memphis Police Department reported that Part I crime fell 36% year-to-date through June, with murders down 60%. A city that spent years bleeding residents to violence is safer today than it was a year ago. That is the standard this deployment should be judged against — not by how fast a single, contested, still-unresolved shooting can be turned into a national referendum on the administration that authorized it.

One family is grieving, and they're entitled to a full accounting of what happened to their grandson. Memphians are entitled to the same. Neither is served by turning an open TBI investigation into a culture-war flashpoint before the facts are in.

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TBI Investigating National Guard Shooting

Just before 4 a.m. yesterday, Memphis Police officers and Tennessee National Guard soldiers assigned to the Memphis Safe Task Force responded to reports of shots fired near Ida B. Wells Avenue and Gayoso Avenue downtown. They pursued 20-year-old Tyrin Johnson, armed with a handgun. Police say Johnson "turned toward NG members with his weapon" before two Guard soldiers opened fire, killing him at the scene despite efforts by Guard medics to treat him, according to NPR.

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is now investigating at the request of Shelby County District Attorney General Steve Mulroy, as it does with any officer-involved shooting. Whether the shooting was legally justified is a fair question for TBI agents to answer with evidence, not press statements. This is the third death tied to the task force in nine months of operation, a stretch that has also produced more than 10,000 arrests, including 92 for homicide and 962 for firearms violations, according to the U.S. Marshals Service.

Trial Set for Tami Sawyer

A federal grand jury indicted Shelby County General Sessions Court Clerk Tami Sawyer on June 15 on six counts of public corruption: conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, theft concerning programs receiving federal funds, honest services wire fraud, money laundering, and interstate travel in aid of racketeering. A federal judge has now set her trial for January 11, 2027, according to WREG — meaning taxpayers wait another six months for a jury to hear a case built on receipts the government already has in hand.

The indictment, filed by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Tennessee, alleges Sawyer embezzled $44,607.35 in public funds between her swearing-in on August 29, 2024, and June 22, 2025. She allegedly used procurement cards issued to other county employees, a county travel card, and travel advances to pay for Uber Eats and Instacart orders, bar tabs, hotels, restaurants, Memphis Tigers tickets, FedExForum purchases, and Turo rentals — many charged on weekends and holidays when her office was closed.

Prosecutors say Sawyer didn't stop at spending the money; she allegedly laundered it, transferring stolen funds to a friend's PayPal account, who kept a portion and returned the rest to her through CashApp.

U.S. Attorney D. Michael Dunavant called it a "significant public corruption case." He's right — but the deeper failure belongs to whatever internal controls let a court clerk swipe public procurement cards for nearly a year without anyone in county finance asking a single question. Sawyer faces up to 20 years in prison and a $500,000 fine if convicted on all counts. She has pleaded not guilty, remains free on her own recognizance, and was suspended 60 days from a job Shelby County voters trusted her to do honestly.

Memphis Schools Sue the State — A Federal Judge Freezes the Takeover Five Weeks Before Classes Start

Memphis-Shelby County Schools and county officials sued Tennessee lawmakers last month over a new law creating a nine-member Board of Managers with veto power over every district purchase above $50,000 and the authority to fire top officials. The oversight board — chaired by developer Billy Orgel — took control July 1 as scheduled. Two days later, U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw Jr. granted a temporary restraining order freezing the board's authority and ordering the state and MSCS to "maintain the status quo" that existed before the takeover law took effect, according to Tennessee Lookout.

The district's argument: school starts August 3, and a nine-member board of political appointees with no staff, no legal counsel, and no Memphis office cannot approve emergency HVAC repairs or bus contracts fast enough to keep buildings open. The district's chief academic officer, Tito Langston, swore in an affidavit that the board's slow approval process "will likely require school closures or interrupt instruction at the start of the school year." That is not a hypothetical. It is the state legislature imposing a new governance structure on roughly 100,000 students without first building the infrastructure to run it.

Set aside the underlying case for a takeover — after years of academic and financial mismanagement at MSCS, that case is not baseless. The rollout here was reckless regardless. The board held its first meeting in a Nashville conference room, not Memphis, and was still hiring an executive director and legal counsel when the lawsuit landed. A full federal hearing on the merits has not yet been scheduled; the elected school board runs the district in the meantime.

MSCS's own proposed budget, more than $1.7 billion, has not yet been approved by the Shelby County Commission and includes bonuses for veteran teachers on top of facilities costs the district can barely track. Whether Nashville-appointed managers or locally elected trustees hold the gavel, the taxpayers footing that bill deserve a district that can answer one basic question: where did the money go. Neither side has offered much confidence on that front.

Shelby County Commission Overrules the State's Certified Rate — Raises Your Taxes Two Cents Nobody Asked For

The Shelby County Commission voted June 29 to set the county property tax rate at $2.71 per $100 of assessed value — two cents above the $2.69 rate the Tennessee Comptroller's Office certified as revenue-neutral after this year's property reappraisal, according to the Daily Memphian. Because a certified rate is designed to produce the same total revenue as before reappraisal, any rate above it is, by definition, a tax increase — whatever commissioners choose to call it.

Budget Committee Chairman Michael Whaley pitched the two-cent bump as fiscal responsibility: each penny raises roughly $3.3 million, so the increase pulls in about $6.6 million a year to rebuild the county's depleted fund balance. Commissioner Amber Mills pushed back, noting the county already burned through its share of American Rescue Plan Act funds without moving the needle on anything. "Everybody's friends and groups and everything else got money but we didn't move the needle in Shelby County," she said, according to FOX13 Memphis. "I am so sorry for the taxpaying citizens of Shelby County, but this is the government you elected."

The increase lands against the backdrop of the Comptroller rejecting Shelby County's budget outright for five consecutive years, most recently over missing detailed budgets for Memphis-Shelby County Schools and fund presentations that failed to meet basic accounting standards, per FOX13 Memphis. A county government that cannot produce a budget the state will even certify is now asking residents to pay more into that same fund balance, with no outside audit forcing better bookkeeping in return.

County government exists to deliver roads, courts, and schools competently on a fixed and predictable share of a citizen's paycheck — not to backfill five years of its own accounting failures with a rate increase timed to a reappraisal cycle few homeowners track closely enough to notice. The commission finalized its overall $1.7 billion operating and $170 million capital budget the same night. The fund balance grows; the accountability question goes unanswered again.

A Criminal Court Judge Missed 4 of Every 10 Work Days This Year — And Kept His $219,120 Salary

Shelby County Criminal Court Division VII Judge Lee Coffee has missed 40 of 105 scheduled court days this year through June 23 — a 38 percent absence rate that left defendants sitting in jail longer than necessary and attorneys scrambling to reschedule hearings, according to the Daily Memphian. Coffee returned to the bench June 24 after missing most of the previous five weeks.

Attorneys who practice before him say the pattern isn't new; it stretches back years. Coffee draws a base salary of $219,120 a year from Tennessee taxpayers regardless of how often he shows up to do the job voters elected him to do. No other profession tolerates a near-40 percent no-show rate without consequence. A judge is different only in that removing one requires a legislative or judicial disciplinary process most Memphians will never see move.

The cost isn't abstract. Criminal Court dockets in Shelby County are already backed up; every day Division VII sits dark, cases stack onto other judges or simply wait, and defendants presumed innocent spend more nights behind bars. Victims wait too — for hearings, for restitution, for resolution.

Tennessee's Code of Judicial Conduct requires judges to be diligent and to dispose of court business promptly. A near-40 percent absence rate is difficult to square with either standard. If the Tennessee Board of Judicial Conduct has not opened an inquiry into Judge Coffee's attendance, it should explain why not — and if it has, Shelby County taxpayers are owed the result

Memphis cashes a $12 million check from Musk's supercomputer — critics say the city is still trading its future for it

Mayor Paul Young's office has leaned hard into the upside of hosting Elon Musk's xAI supercomputer: an estimated $12 million in city and county tax revenue in its first year, a quarter of it earmarked for the neighborhoods around the Colossus site, and now word that Anthropic — the company behind the Claude AI assistant — has signed on to rent compute capacity at the same Memphis facility, according to Fox13 Memphis. The mayor called it proof Memphis is becoming a hub other tech firms want to be near.

Not everyone's buying the framing. A Daily Memphian opinion piece argues the city is being sold a rosier picture than the facts support, pointing to the same aquifer, air-quality and gas-turbine concerns that have dogged the project since 2024 — concerns the mayor's office has repeatedly had to walk back or clarify under pressure from residents and state lawmakers.

Whatever Anthropic's arrival means for the balance sheet, the underlying question hasn't moved: a private company is running one of the most water- and power-hungry facilities in the region, and the people living next to it are still being asked to take City Hall's word for how well it's being managed.

250 years in, the country marked its birthday from Mount Rushmore — while ICE and City Hall in New York keep swinging at each other–Compare that to Memphis

(7/4/26 BenQQ) President Trump used a Mount Rushmore address and a "Salute to America" event to mark the nation's 250th birthday, a split-screen moment: one camera on granite presidents, the other on a real-time standoff over who controls immigration enforcement in the country's largest city. Border czar Tom Homan told Fox News that ICE is about to surge more agents into New York than the city has "ever seen," a direct answer to Mayor Mamdani's sanctuary-city posture and a new state law barring local police from helping federal agents. Set that against Memphis's own experience with the Memphis Safe Task Force — a federal-state-local partnership local officials credit with a real, measurable drop in violent crime this year — and the contrast writes itself: cooperation between layers of government tends to produce results; standoffs between them tend to produce press conferences.

FedEx sells a Memphis company to France. Here's what it means for FedEx jobs.

(7.3.26 BenQQ) The Washington Post and Action News 5 report that FedEx is selling FedEx Supply Chain. This is the FedEx company that runs warehouses. Its headquarters is in Memphis. The buyer is CMA CGM Group, a shipping company from France. The price is $1.4 billion. About 10,000 workers and 80 warehouses will now belong to CMA CGM instead of FedEx.

What FedEx says: No layoffs right now. Workers keep their jobs and just work for a new company. That's the official line. But readers should not take a company's word for it just because they said it in a press release. Companies say "no layoffs" right up until they announce layoffs. That's not an accusation — it's just how these deals usually work.

What actually happened last time: This isn't FedEx Supply Chain's first trip to the chopping block in Shelby County. In August 2025, the company laid off 611 workers at two Memphis warehouses — 4155 Quest Way and 5800 Challenge Drive — after a customer, Cummins, moved its business to Indianapolis. That cut wasn't part of any big merger. It happened simply because a customer left. If FedEx will cut hundreds of jobs over one lost customer, a full change of ownership is a much bigger reason to worry.

The bigger risk: office jobs, not warehouse jobs. FedEx Supply Chain's headquarters — the bosses, the managers, the office staff who run the whole division — is in Memphis. CMA CGM already has its own headquarters staff for its logistics arm, Ceva Logistics. Nobody needs two sets of bosses running the same kind of company. When companies merge, this is exactly the kind of overlap that gets trimmed first, usually well after the "don't worry, nothing is changing" press release has already faded from memory. The exact number of Memphis headquarters jobs at risk has not been made public by FedEx or CMA CGM. That itself is worth noticing — the company will tell you jobs are safe, but won't tell you how many office jobs even exist to cut.

Does Memphis stay the transportation hub? Yes. This sale does not touch FedEx Express, the actual airplane hub at Memphis International Airport. That hub employs more than 30,000 people and is getting a $1.5 billion investment through 2030. FedEx Supply Chain is a much smaller, separate business. Memphis is not losing its title as "America's Distribution Center" over this deal.

Bottom line: No layoffs have been promised, and none have been ruled out either. Warehouse jobs are probably safer, since CMA CGM is buying the warehouses to use them, not shut them down. Office and management jobs at the Memphis headquarters carry the real risk once the two companies start combining their staffs — and neither company has said how many of those jobs exist or how many might disappear.

Judge halts takeover — but let's not pretend the MSCS board earned our confidence back

(BenQQ 7.2.26) Barely 24 hours after Tennessee's state oversight board took formal control of Memphis-Shelby County Schools, a federal judge froze the takeover, ordering the state and district to hold the line at the status quo. Fine. Due process matters. The state oversight board's nine members are appointed, not elected — five by the governor, two each by the lieutenant governor and House speaker — and an appointed body with veto power over every $50,000 purchase deserves real scrutiny before it starts running a $1.7 billion operation.

But let's be honest about how Memphis got into this mess. This isn't a hostile invasion of a well-run district. It's the direct result of an elected board that spent the last eighteen months governing by impulse rather than principle — most notably voting to oust Superintendent Marie Feagins just nine months into her tenure, a decision so contested it triggered a county commission vote to shorten four board members' own terms and turned a nonpartisan school board race into the district's first-ever partisan election.

When a governing body can't manage its own personnel decisions without setting off a cascade of lawsuits, recall threats, and legislative retaliation, it forfeits the moral high ground to complain when Nashville finally steps in. Individual families — the ones actually raising kids in this system — don't benefit from elected board members treating a superintendent's contract like a political football, and they don't benefit from an appointed board with unchecked authority either.

What Memphis needs isn't a tug-of-war between two unaccountable power centers. It's a return to first principles: measurable academic outcomes, real consequences for adults who fail children, and a system that answers to parents rather than to whichever faction currently holds the gavel. The state takeover fight will grind through federal court for months. In the meantime, the kids who start school August 3 are the ones with the most to lose from everyone else's dysfunction.

Action News 5 reports the Tri-State Defender hosted a community education forum Wednesday, the same day the takeover froze. Former board member Tomeka Hart put it plainly: "The system cannot continue to be the enemy of this community." Thirty-three days from the new school year, no faction here gets to hide behind the other's dysfunction.

Supreme Court Instantly Makes Millions of People Born to Illegal Immigrants in This Country Legal Citizens Inspite of the Plain Meaning of the 14th Amendment; Opens Door to Antagonistic Foreign Power “Birth Citizenship” Takeover of Our Country in Just a Few Years

(6.30.16 BenQQ Commentary) In what will become known as perhaps among the worst decisions standing along Dred Scott v. Sandford (African Americans were not citizens), Plessy v. Ferguson (separate but equal) the Japanese incarcerations, Korematsu v. United States (Japanese internment) and others, today’s decision rocks any concept of legal rationality–and you don’t have to be a lawyer to see that. The “experts” are dead wrong and have put the country in a terrible fix.

Yep, the Court, thanks to Chief Justice John Robers, Justices Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett who wrote the affirming decision and the 3 liberal “block”  justices–Sotomayer, Kagan and Brown–all voted for it. (Incidentally, Amy Coney Barrett is a graduate of Memphis’ Rhodes College, along with now ousted Jasmine Crockett).

The Supreme Court didn’t have to decide this way. In dissent Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito presented the many breaks with logic and precedence of previous courts. Those can be read in his decision along with the Court’s decision. Further, the Court has to stop and think about decisions that may amount to social suicide when played out in today’s political environment, especially when other options are available, as Thomas and Alito clearly pointed out.

Now we’re in that fix.

In China over 500 firms operate birth tourism packages. Referred to in that country as “maternity houses” in which women *can* come to America, have a baby and then return. Only now, they can return with a new baby and with an American citizenship. A few years later that baby can return at 18 and vote-as instructed-in a presidential election that would influence foreign policy toward China.

China is one country that has already incorporated this tactic into a long term strategy, according to Peter Schweizer, author of "The Invisible Coup: How American Elites and Foreign Powers Use Immigration as a Weapon."  

Schweizer claims that roughly 100,000 Chinese babies per year have been born in the United States on average over the past 13 years, and that over the past decade, at least a million future American voters have grown up in China under Communist Party influence. No legal maneuvering justifies ignoring that.

In America now, where Democratic politicians are declaring open disloyalty with influential legacy media tolerance, it is not inconceivable that children born by foreign women will not begin to be organized into a legal voting block to do the interest of their other parent country. Further, this is the last strike against dual citizenship, which could constitute at least a part of a defense against the perfidious outgrowths of this decision. But that’s another subject.

The first sentence of the 14th amendment, ratified in 1868 to make the children of slaves full American citizens reads: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”  Note: “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”

Few if any successful arguments (I am not a lawyer), at least up till now, has said the phrase “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” intended to refer to anybody other than slaves or those who had been domiciled in the United States.

But today the US Supreme Court would have you believe anybody who border-crossed illegally could have a baby in-country and that would become an American citizen. This opens the door to untold future problems, not the least of which is continued unravelling of national cohesion.

Allowing millions of transited dropped babies was never the intention of the 14th Amendment, which was the second of many attempts to make amends to black citizens through the course of American history. Arguably the first was the death of 360,222, not to mention limb loss, Union soldiers in the first war ever fought for the emancipation of another people. One little fact hardly if ever talked about in Juneteenth.

But for now President Trump has to respond to that decision in some or many ways.

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Shelby County Commission Defies the State Comptroller, Hikes Property Tax Rate Anyway

(6.29.26) The Shelby County Commission is taking its final vote today on a proposed property tax rate of $2.71 per $100 of assessed value — a move that defies the Tennessee Comptroller's Office, which has ordered a 3-cent decrease from the current rate of $2.69. Budget Committee Chairman Michael Whaley is leading the push for the higher rate.

The Tennessee Comptroller has refused to approve Shelby County's budget for the fifth consecutive year, citing the full county budget's failure to include detailed budgets for MSCS and other accounting deficiencies inconsistent with generally accepted accounting principles. The state's position is clear: get the house in order. The county's response has been to keep spending more.

The commission also voted on budget amendments that include shelving Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris's proposal to begin planning a new Treadwell K-8 school. On one hand, it is refreshing to see a spending plan killed before it begins. On the other, the commission that blocked that project is the same body proposing a tax rate 5 cents above what the state says is justified. Shelby County taxpayers are being squeezed from every direction by officials who cannot produce a budget the state will approve — and who respond not with discipline, but with higher rates.

Mayor Young Dumps Three Top Officials After Memphis Ranks 205 Out of 206 Cities on Economic Index

(6.29.26) Mayor Paul Young replaced his Chief Operating Officer, Chief Financial Officer, and city engineer on the same day last week — a triple-decker personnel purge that followed a devastating verdict from economic think tank the Milken Institute, which ranked Memphis 205th out of 206 cities on its Best Performing Cities Index. The index measures economic growth, job creation, and neighborhood well-being. There is one city in America ranked below Memphis. One.

Chris Winton replaces outgoing COO Antonio Adams. Winton has 25 years of experience at companies including FedEx, Tesla, and Comcast. Art Davis, currently serving as Deputy Chief Financial Officer of the Treasury, replaces CFO Walter Person. Greg Dotson, most recently State Transportation Leader for West Tennessee at engineering firm Gresham Smith, becomes Interim City Engineer, replacing Manny Belen. The changes were announced June 26 by WREG.

Young has legitimate accomplishments to point to: homicides fell 30% in his first year and dropped to 235 in 2025 from 399 in 2023. That is real, and it matters. But ranking 205th on economic performance — with all the population flight, poverty, and disinvestment that implies — means public safety gains alone are not enough to turn the city around. Swapping the COO and CFO is the right instinct. Whether new blood in the executive suite can actually change Memphis's economic trajectory is a harder question, and the Milken Institute's index will be an unsparing judge.

Supreme Court Leaves Race-Based Police-Stop Question Unanswered–and in a City Like Memphis, it is Likely to Return

(Uploaded 6.28.26) Justice Samuel Alito’s warning was blunt: if race becomes part of the Fourth Amendment test for whether a person feels free to walk away from police, officers may have to make fast racial calculations on the street, and courts may be forced to create different constitutional rules for different groups.

At a time when Democrats are pressing race-conscious remedies across public life — from legislative redistricting to expanded voting-access rules — the Court’s refusal to take Carter leaves open a troubling new defense of race-conscious policing: that Black citizens may have to be questioned differently, or perhaps by Black officers, because the District of Columbia Court of Appeals has made race part of the Fourth Amendment “free to leave” test.

That warning came after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear United States v. Donte J. Carter, a case from the District of Columbia Court of Appeals that could ripple through police departments in urban cities such as Memphis, where officers already work under intense scrutiny, high crime pressure and deep public distrust over stops, searches and gun enforcement.

The case began in Washington, D.C., when plainclothes police officers approached a group of black men during a gun-recovery operation after reports of increased shootings and gunfire in the area. Donte Carter denied having a weapon. After an officer asked him to raise his pants, another officer saw what appeared to be a gun-shaped bulge. A firearm was recovered, and Carter was charged with firearm offenses.

The D.C. Superior Court refused to suppress the gun, finding Carter had not been seized until officers saw the bulge and had reasonable suspicion. But the District of Columbia Court of Appeals reversed, holding that Carter was seized earlier and that the court had to consider whether an objective, reasonable person sharing Carter’s “racial status as a Black man” would have felt free to end the encounter. Further: “Seized earlier” means the appeals court said the seizure happened at the moment one officer asked Carter to raise his pants, not later when another officer saw the L-shaped bulge.

That is the legal break point. The D.C. court did not explicitly order police departments to send Black officers to question Black suspects. But it did make race part of the Fourth Amendment “free to leave” analysis, raising practical questions police chiefs may not be able to answer: must an officer consider a suspect’s race before asking a question? Does the same request carry different constitutional weight depending on who hears it?

So in a majority-Black city like Memphis, does this mean officers need different street rules for different citizens?

The Supreme Court denied certiorari, meaning it declined to review the case and left the D.C. ruling standing without deciding whether it was right. That is not an endorsement, but it is also not a correction. For now, the most important court in the country has allowed one of the country’s most sensitive policing questions to remain unsettled.

For Memphis officers, the concern is obvious. Police are told to reduce gun violence, recover illegal weapons, respect constitutional limits, avoid racial profiling and make split-second street decisions that may later be dissected by courts for years. If the Fourth Amendment’s “reasonable person” test becomes race-conscious, officers may be left guessing not only what the law permits, but which version of the law applies.

This issue will almost certainly return to the Supreme Court. The next time, the Court may have to say plainly whether the Constitution uses one reasonable-person standard for every citizen, or whether race can change the meaning of a police encounter.

And if Democrats someday succeed in “packing the court,” the answer could determine not just police procedure, but the future shape of equal protection and law enforcement in Memphis and America.

Supreme Court Rejects Hawaii's End-Run Around Second Amendment

The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on June 25 that Hawaii violated the Constitution by requiring express permission to carry firearms on private property open to the public. The case, Wolford v. Lopez, challenged a Hawaii law enacted after the 2022 Bruen decision that recognized the right to carry handguns for self-defense. Hawaii had effectively circumvented that landmark ruling by flipping the common-law default: instead of allowing lawful citizens entry unless prohibited, the state demanded affirmative consent for any armed citizen. Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the majority that "Hawaii's prohibitions on public carry represent a distinct outlier" and that "overwhelming evidence shows an enduring American tradition permitting public carry." The Washington Post

The facts are straightforward. For years, Hawaii made it nearly impossible to obtain a carry license until the Bruen decision forced the state's hand. Rather than accept the constitutional reality, Hawaii simply repackaged the restriction under a different mechanism—a "default deny" rule that burdened law-abiding permit holders with the impossible task of obtaining permission from each business owner before entering their premises daily. Alito noted that this imposed "severe restrictions on the daily activities of residents who have satisfied the State's rigorous requirements for the issuance of a carry permit." The law didn't protect property rights; it weaponized them against constitutional rights. Supreme Court of the United States The Trace

Hawaii's legal arguments were as hollow as they were desperate. The state leaned on an 1865 Louisiana statute prohibiting carrying firearms on "premises or plantations" without owner consent—a law that was part of Louisiana's Black Codes designed to disarm freedmen. The absurdity speaks for itself. Alito demolished the claim directly: "The statute Hawaii cites was part of Louisiana's Black Code, and it provided a tool for disarming blacks and thus leaving them defenseless against attacks. Unless we put history entirely out of our minds, Hawaii's claim that this tainted artifact illuminates the original understanding of the right to keep and bear arms cannot be taken seriously." Hawaii also cited 18th-century anti-poaching laws targeting unauthorized hunting on private land—regulations so dissimilar to modern retail spaces that the comparison bordered on comical.

The Constitution speaks with absolute clarity on this matter. The Second Amendment states: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." The word "infringed" carries unmistakable weight. It does not say "slightly restricted" or "regulated with permission from government officials." It says "shall not be infringed"—a firm, unambiguous commitment to American liberty that predates the republic itself. This decision restores that commitment to its rightful place in American life, rejecting the notion that rights depend on bureaucratic permission.

The ruling invalidates similar laws in California, Maryland, New York, and New Jersey, establishing that the default rule is simple: lawful gun owners may carry unless property owners post clear prohibition. It affirms that a permit holder's liberty does not vanish at a storefront door and that the Founders' vision of armed, self-reliant citizens defending their families and freedom remains central to American identity. ABC News

Memphis Schools Sue the State — While the Takeover Board Quietly Gets to Work

Memphis-Shelby County Schools and Shelby County government filed a federal lawsuit alleging Tennessee's school takeover law unconstitutionally targets Memphis. Simultaneously, the state-appointed board responsible for executing that takeover is already moving to hire an attorney and a director — and signalling possible formal information requests of MSCS Superintendent Roderick Richmond.

The board, chaired by Memphis developer Billy Orgel, held its first meeting in Nashville — which drew its own round of criticism from Memphis officials who saw it as a snub. That Orgel's board would open by meeting in a different city, then immediately hire legal counsel and demand documents from Richmond, signals they are not interested in a slow rollout.

TCAP scores released this week provide context for why the state moved. MSCS third graders showed genuine strength in reading, but math scores stagnated across elementary and middle school grades. Suburban Memphis school districts are now outperforming the state average in reading. The gap between city and suburb is no longer closing — it's calcifying.

"You targeted us" may be a viable constitutional argument. It is a thin defense for the 100,000-plus students sitting in classrooms where the outcomes haven't improved enough. The lawsuit and the board will run in parallel for months. Memphis kids don't have that kind of time to spare.

Incoming County Commissioner Bought Herself a Car With City Grant Money

A City of Memphis investigation found that incoming Shelby County Commissioner LaShanta Rudd spent more than $10,000 in city grant funds on herself rather than the nonprofit the money was meant to support — including the purchase of a Nissan Sentra and at least $5,000 in other improper personal expenses.

Rudd won her race and has not yet been sworn in. She is simultaneously a commissioner-elect and the subject of a taxpayer fraud investigation. The investigation was reported by the Daily Memphian based on a confidential city memo. Rudd has not publicly responded.

This follows a familiar pattern in local Memphis government: public funds routed through nonprofit structures that function, in practice, as personal accounts. The question now is whether relevant authorities will act before Rudd is seated — or whether she'll take her place on the same County Commission that oversees the government now investigating her.

Grizzlies Land Cameron Boozer 3rd Overall, Then Trade Three Picks for a Center

The Memphis Grizzlies made two significant moves in a 24-hour stretch: selecting former Duke star Cameron Boozer with the third overall pick in the 2026 NBA Draft, then trading three second-round picks to the Detroit Pistons for center Isaiah Stewart.

Boozer is the son of former NBA big man Carlos Boozer and has won at every competitive level he's entered. Daily Memphian columnist Drew Hill called him a "cause for ultimate optimism" for a franchise in the middle of a deliberate rebuild following the Ja Morant era.

Stewart brings something the Grizzlies have lacked: reliable, physical frontcourt presence. He is considered one of the more punishing centers in the NBA. Three second-rounders is a fair price for a proven rotation piece. Memphis also selected BYU wing Richie Saunders in the second round — a 6-foot-5 shooter who tore his ACL in February but projects as a legitimate long-term contributor.

This is the most active draft window Memphis has had in years. Whether it translates into wins — and into something the city can care about again — depends on what happens between now and October.

Safe Task Force Crosses 10,000 Arrests — Crime Is Still Inching Up

The Memphis Safe Task Force, the joint federal-local operation launched via Presidential Memorandum on September 15, 2025 surpassed 10,000 total criminal arrests on June 10 and confirmed the removal of 1,708 illegal firearms from Memphis streets.

By any metric, those are significant enforcement numbers. The Task Force has delivered results that Memphis Police — chronically underfunded and understaffed — could not have generated alone, though local politicians have contended crime was already going down before the Task Force hit town

‍Forty Percent Less Blood: Trump's Memphis Task Force Rewrites the City's Grim Arithmetic

Memphis violent crime is down more than 43 percent compared to the same period last year, according to Memphis Police Department data cited in a White House release — a staggering turnaround for a city that had long ranked among the most dangerous in the nation. The numbers are not rounding errors: motor vehicle thefts are down 67 percent, robberies down 51 percent, sexual assaults down 38 percent, and homicides down 35 percent. Here is the direct White House news release.

President Trump's Memphis Safe Task Force, a coalition of local, state, and federal law enforcement alongside the Tennessee National Guard, has logged more than 7,400 arrests. Among the haul: 1,219 illegal firearms seized and 150 missing children recovered. As of early June, 67 homicides had been recorded in 2026 — down 57 from the same point last year.

Critics at the Tennessee Lookout note that just 2 percent of the task force's immigration arrests involved violent criminals — a talking point that conveniently ignores the broader suppression effect that a visible federal presence has on street-level crime. Memphis residents are dying at a slower rate. That is the headline.

Mayor Paul Young, who initially draped the city in skepticism about federal intervention, has conceded that more work remains but has stopped short of crediting the task force directly. His reluctance to give Trump even a grudging nod speaks louder than the crime statistics themselves. The data, reported by Fox News, is now being cited as a blueprint for other high-crime American cities.

State Hands Memphis Schools a Leash: Takeover Law Sets Stage for More Closures

The Tennessee state legislature has signed into law an unprecedented takeover of Memphis-Shelby County Schools, giving a nine-person oversight board — appointed by the state's top three Republicans — sweeping authority over the district's financial and operational decisions. The board assumes control just as MSCS closes five schools this summer: Georgian Hills Elementary, Chickasaw Middle, Lucy Elementary, Frayser-Corning Elementary, and Ida B. Wells Academy.

District enrollment has shed 10,000 students over the past decade, a demographic verdict on the quality of what Memphis schools have been delivering. More than 75 percent of students last year failed to achieve proficiency in reading and math on state standardized tests — a number that persists despite the district claiming four consecutive years of maximum academic growth scores, a statistical curiosity that raises more questions than it answers.

The state takeover could accelerate closures further. Chalkbeat Tennessee reports that Tennessee lawmakers are using Houston's school intervention as a blueprint — and Houston's takeover triggered a wave of shutdowns. Governor Bill Lee's appointments include Dorsey Hopson, who served as Memphis superintendent from 2013 to 2019, lending the board at least one member with institutional knowledge of the district's dysfunction.

MSCS leadership, scrambling for continuity, has proposed $1,000 retention bonuses for certified teachers who stay put and $2,500 sign-on bonuses for special education hires — a tacit admission that staffing instability remains a core problem. The 2026-27 proposed budget stands at $1.7 billion, now subject to a state-controlled board's approval, as reported by Chalkbeat.

Where is the Promised "No Kings" Report? Either Fire the Officers or Put Them Back to Work

The city told the ACLU in April that its internal investigation of alleged mistreatment of the March 28 'No Kings' protesters was 'expected to be completed by June 15' — nine days ago. We have seen nothing announced. Four officers have remained on paid leave for nearly three months. With the ACLU's contempt motion pending in federal court and zero accountability produced so far, today's angle is the silence: a deadline passed, officers are still being paid, and Memphis has nothing to show for it.

What the city is paying monthly–an estimate…

The four officers were placed on paid administrative leave March 28 — nearly three months ago. Using MPD-specific salary data from Glassdoor and Salary.com, the average MPD officer earns roughly $65,000–$70,600 annually — call it $5,500–$5,900/month in base pay per officer.

So for four officers:

• Base pay alone: ~$22,000–$23,600/month
• Add government benefits (pension, health, FICA — typically 35–40% on top of base for municipal employees): total cost to taxpayers runs ~$30,000–$33,000/month
• Cumulative since March 28 (~3 months): roughly $90,000–$100,000 in salary and benefits paid for officers not on street duty, if at all.

About the "No Kings" protest...

What organizers billed as a peaceful demonstration turned into a confrontation with Memphis police, as hundreds gathered at Robert Church Park for the city's edition of the national "No Kings" protest. The liberal Institute for Public Service Reporting documented crowds filling the park under clear skies before a planned march through downtown. By the end of the afternoon, organizers were accusing police of an "unprovoked and egregious use of force," claiming officers tackled, beat, maced, and arrested peaceful protesters and safety marshals without warning.

Memphis police have not publicly contested the characterization at length. WREG reported at least one arrest stemming from a traffic disruption during the march. The anti-Trump protest, organized in opposition to what demonstrators call executive overreach, drew participants from across Shelby County.

The "No Kings" protests follow a pattern established earlier this year when an anti-ICE demonstration in January — organized by Indivisible Memphis — ended with a state patrol vehicle striking a protest marshal during a confrontation. Memphis has become a reliable staging ground for resistance-brand activism, with the city's progressive political infrastructure reliably amplifying national narratives regardless of local conditions.

The irony is not subtle: a city that has spent years demanding federal disengagement from its streets is now hosting marches against the federal presence that has driven violent crime to a 25-year low. The protest movement has not reconciled that contradiction, nor has local media pressed it to.

Seven Democrats, One Outcome: Shelby County's Sham of a Mayoral Race

Seven Democratic candidates are competing to fill the Shelby County mayor's seat left open by the term-limited departure of Lee Harris, and the winner of August's Democratic primary will almost certainly be the next county mayor. The nominal Republican challenger is John Deberry in the August 6 general — but in a county where Democrats dominate at every level, the primary IS the election.

The field includes Memphis City Council member JB Smiley Jr., who campaigns on tax burdens and law enforcement equity; Shelby County Commissioner Mickell Lowery, who touts public safety and job creation; and Harold Collins, Harris's chief administrative officer since 2022 — effectively an incumbent-by-proxy. Marie Feagins, a former educator who was fired by the Memphis-Shelby County Schools board just nine months after being hired as superintendent, is also in the field, suggesting the Democratic bench here has a low ceiling.

What the field shares is more telling than what divides it: every candidate hails from the same political infrastructure that has presided over decades of population flight, chronic underperformance in schools, and a crime rate that required a federal task force to bend. There is no candidate running on accountability for what Memphis Democrats have built. The race is about succession, not correction.

Second Lawsuit Hits Suspended Clerk Tami Sawyer As Federal Corruption Case Tightens

(6.23.26) Today a second civil lawsuit landed on suspended Shelby County General Sessions Court Clerk Tami Sawyer, piling onto a federal indictment that already threatens her with up to 20 years in prison. The new filing follows an earlier suit from Jeffery Walker, Sawyer's former Chief Administrative Officer, who accused her of retaliating against him after he reported her abuse of county credit cards. Her executive assistant, Keona Bean, filed a similar whistleblower suit in April. Two employees blew the whistle. A federal grand jury listened. Now a federal judge will decide her fate.

On June 15, federal prosecutors in the Western District of Tennessee indicted Sawyer on six counts: conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, theft of federal funds, honest services wire fraud, money laundering, and interstate travel in aid of racketeering. The indictment alleges she embezzled $44,607.35 in public funds between her swearing-in on August 29, 2024, and June 22, 2025 — less than ten months on the job. She allegedly used procurement cards issued to other county employees and county travel accounts to pay for personal alcohol, food, and other expenses.

Tennessee Republicans — already energized by the Memphis-Shelby County Schools takeover — have used the Sawyer indictment to renew calls for broader state intervention in Shelby County governance. Whether that goes anywhere depends on what the courts do next. But the pattern is hard to ignore: a county that keeps electing officials who then steal from it is a county that either isn't paying attention or has decided accountability is someone else's problem.

Memphis Schools Takeover Board Ready to Seat — And School Closures May Follow

The nine-member Board of Managers appointed to oversee Memphis-Shelby County Schools is fully seated and scheduled to begin official operations July 1. House Speaker Cameron Sexton made the final appointment last week, completing a board that Governor Bill Lee had largely assembled in late May. Developer and longtime former school board member Billy Orgel will chair the body.

The Board of Managers will share control of MSCS's operations, contracts, and budget from now through June 2030. It was created by legislation signed in April 2026, born from years of failed academic performance in Tennessee's largest district. The elected school board does not disappear — it continues to exist — but major decisions will run through the state-appointed panel. For a school system that has resisted accountability for decades while producing some of the worst graduation and literacy outcomes in the state, this is either a long-overdue correction or a Republican-engineered power play, depending on whom you ask. The answer likely contains elements of both.

City Drops AutoZone Park Consultant, Still Eyes $55M Renovation With Five Years Left on the Lease

The Memphis City Council is expected to vote today on a $5 million emergency maintenance package for AutoZone Park — even as the city simultaneously weighs a much larger $55 million renovation of the taxpayer-owned stadium. The city has ended its contract with the consulting firm tasked with reimagining the ballpark and the surrounding area. Exactly who will now drive the $55 million plan — and whether that number is real or aspirational — remains unclear.

The $55 million figure emerged in city documents tied to a deal with Florida-based developer Vieste LLC for a multi-phase renovation meant to bring the stadium up to Major League Baseball standards. The problem: the Memphis Redbirds' current lease runs only five more years. Council members have raised the obvious question — why commit $55 million in public money to a facility whose primary tenant may not be there in 2031? That question has not been convincingly answered.

The Redbirds pushed back earlier this month after the council delayed a vote on the initial $5 million in deferred maintenance. The Memphis Restaurant Association urged approval, citing the economic ripple effect of game nights on downtown businesses. Both arguments are valid. But they don't resolve the core problem: the city is being asked to spend $55 million on an asset tied to a tenant operating on a short clock, without a clear long-term deal in place. Memphis has a long history of subsidizing sports facilities with taxpayer money and watching the economics evaporate. This one deserves more scrutiny than it's getting.

Trump's Memphis Safe Task Force Hits 10,000 Arrests — and the Numbers Behind the Numbers Tell a Story of a City Getting Relief From Crime

The Memphis Safe Task Force surpassed 10,000 arrests on June 10, announcing 10,017 total since the operation launched in late September 2025. Alongside those arrests, the task force has seized 1,708 illegal firearms. The headline crime numbers are striking: as of early June, Memphis had recorded 67 homicides for the year — down 57 from the same point in 2025. Part I crimes are down 27 percent year-over-year. Shootings down 38 percent. Carjackings down 48 percent.

By any honest measure, those are real results. Memphis was on pace to record fewer than 200 homicides in 2026 — a figure that would have seemed impossible three years ago. The Task Force, which operates as a joint effort between federal marshals, Memphis Police, the Tennessee Highway Patrol, and the National Guard, has functioned as an aggressive enforcement overlay on a city that had been losing the war on violent crime. It is working in the most basic sense: fewer people are being shot.

Community monitors have reported harassment and surveillance overreach. Those accounts deserve investigation. But the choice for Memphis residents — particularly those in the neighborhoods where violence was concentrated — is not between perfect law enforcement and acceptable homicide rates. It is between accountability and body counts. Right now the body counts are falling.

Two Years In, xAI's Memphis Promise Looks Like Pollution, Broken Pledges and Threatening Emerging Technologies

Two years ago, the Greater Memphis Chamber announced that Elon Musk's xAI would plant its Colossus supercomputer campus in South Memphis, bringing jobs, investment, and the future of artificial intelligence to a city that desperately needed an economic win. Today, what South Memphis has gotten is dangerous air pollution, unpermitted gas turbines, non-disclosure agreements that kept city officials in the dark, and a community whose cancer risk sits at four times the national average.

Pollution sensors installed after xAI's arrival show peak nitrogen oxide levels from the facility's gas turbines have risen 79 percent. xAI has been operating those turbines — 35 of them, nearly double what was initially disclosed — without proper permits, according to the Southern Environmental Law Center. The EPA is investigating whether xAI violated the Clean Air Act. The Colossus 2 expansion into Southaven, Mississippi, is already underway, bringing even more turbine capacity and potential for over 1,700 tons of smog-forming NOx per year. The proposed power plant could cause more than $30 million in annual health damages, including premature deaths, asthma attacks, and heart attacks.

And there’s another issue in the big data center world: the mind bending speed of technology that threatens to upend the classic computing models of big data centers. Rob Enderle and other data center skeptics assert before cities committed billions to massive ground-based data center infrastructure, they should have acknowledged two emerging realities: quantum computing that claims to drastically shrink the physical footprint needed for computational power, and orbital satellite systems that are said to eliminate the crushing power and cooling costs that make terrestrial facilities economically fragile. Cities rushed to build massive facilities based on technology that was already becoming obsolete, locking taxpayers into expensive infrastructure that will be stranded assets within a decade.

Memphis city officials signed non-disclosure agreements with xAI before the deal was publicly announced. Health and utility officials were reportedly caught off guard when xAI doubled in size. The neighborhood of Boxtown, closest to the facility, sits at four times the national cancer risk. KeShaun Pearson of Memphis Community Against Pollution has been saying the same thing for two years: promises are made, and promises are broken. The city that rolled out the red carpet for xAI owes its residents — especially those in South Memphis, who have the least political leverage — a transparent accounting of what was agreed to, what was hidden, and who made those decisions. That accounting has not come

Memphis Safe Task Force Faces Activist Pushback

(6.22.26 BenQQ) The confrontation over the Memphis Safe Task Force began after President Donald Trump’s Sept. 15, 2025 order creating the operation, followed by a late-September enforcement surge that put federal agents, Tennessee troopers, National Guard support and local partners into Memphis streets.

To supporters, it was overdue backup for a city that had become known for violent crime, fugitives, stolen cars and illegal guns. To opponents of Trump’s law-and-order and immigration policies, it looked like another reason to fight Trump.

That political divide helps explain why “legal observers” and citizen monitors appeared so quickly. Many were not simply curious bystanders, but came from the activist, civil-liberties and anti-Trump enforcement world, where filming police and challenging immigration actions are political acts as much as legal ones. Hunter Demster, a Memphis activist and lead plaintiff in the ACLU-backed lawsuit, said that “in the midst of the occupation in Memphis”, people needed to “bear witness.” In the same release, the ACLU says, MSTF agents have “terrorized local communities” through mass traffic stops and immigration arrests.

Search uncovered no clear public video clearly showing observers physically blocking MSTF agents from doing their jobs in Memphis. But the record shows something more complicated than passive observation. AP reported that Demster filmed a traffic stop and told people in the stopped car they had a right not to speak to police.

Demster calls that protected “know your rights” speech; the task-force side could reasonably see it as stepping from detached documentation into an active law-enforcement encounter. Reason linked to a short ACLU/YouTube clip in which an unmarked law-enforcement truck allegedly rolled by Demster while someone over a loudspeaker said, “Good job, Hunter.”

A politically motivated observer can still record real misconduct. But motive matters. If observers followed task-force activity from scene to scene, posted videos, confronted agents, gave advice to people during stops or pushed the edge of Tennessee’s 25-foot “Halo Law,” the task-force side has a fair argument that some of this was activism designed to frustrate or delegitimize enforcement, not detached monitoring.

The Halo Law makes it a crime to intentionally approach or remain within 25 feet of an officer after being warned to move back; it is now being challenged in federal court, with the ACLU arguing MSTF agents used it against people who were observing but not obstructing.

The institutional politics are real. The ACLU is not a neutral referee in the Trump-era crime-and-immigration fight, and it has documented ties to the Soros/Open Society funding network; Open Society Foundations awarded the national ACLU $50 million in 2014 for a campaign to cut incarceration. That does not prove George Soros directed the Memphis lawsuit, but it does place the case inside a well-funded national movement opposed to the kind of enforcement surge Trump brought to Memphis.

The question is whether the city can enforce the law without letting activists turn every arrest into disruptive theater — and without letting law enforcement turn every observer into an enemy.

Indictment Alleges Tami Sawyer Stole $44,607 From Taxpayers — Then Laundered It Through a Friend's Cash App

Shelby County General Sessions Court Clerk Tami Sawyer faces up to 20 years in federal prison after a grand jury indicted her June 15 on six counts: conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, theft of federal funds, interstate travel in aid of racketeering, and two counts of money laundering. She pleaded not guilty and was released on her own recognizance. She must surrender her passport and obtain court approval before opening new credit lines.

The alleged scheme ran from August 29, 2024 — the day she was sworn in — through June 22, 2025. Prosecutors say Sawyer used procurement cards issued to other county employees and a county travel card to charge $44,607 in public funds to her personal benefit. The spending included Uber Eats deliveries, bars, hotels, Instacart orders, FedExForum events, Memphis Tigers expenses, and a Turo rental. Among other allegations she obtained fraudulent travel advances. To launder the proceeds, she allegedly transferred stolen funds to a friend's PayPal account; the friend kept a cut and returned the rest to Sawyer via Cash App. The mechanics were brazen and continuous — not a lapse in judgment, but a year-long operating system as reported by WREG and Memphis Flyer.

On June 18, two days after her arraignment, a panel of General Sessions Court judges voted to suspend Sawyer for 60 days. She loses building access, badge, keys, and all computer credentials. She keeps her full salary and benefits. FOX13 Memphis confirmed the terms. Memphis taxpayers, who funded the theft, continue to fund her salary while she awaits trial.

Sawyer built her public identity as a progressive activist — most visibly leading the removal of Confederate statues from Memphis parks in 2017. She won the clerk's office on that reputation. The indictment describes someone who treated public office as a personal expense account from the moment she took the oath. The WKNO TN Politics analysis published Friday said the indictment puts the entire Shelby County Democratic establishment under scrutiny — not because all Democrats steal, but because the party apparatus that recruited, endorsed, and elevated Sawyer bears some accountability for what she did with the office they helped her win.

Correction: A sentence in this article "U.S. Attorney Kevin Ritz called it 'a significant public corruption case.'" should be "U.S. Attorney Michael Dunavant called it "a significant public corruption case."

Memphis Schools Sue the State — Even as the State's Board Holds Its First Meeting

Memphis-Shelby County Schools filed a lawsuit against the state of Tennessee on June 19 challenging the constitutionality of the legislation that strips the elected school board of authority over the district. The suit was filed even as the state-appointed Board of Managers held its first organizational meeting in preparation for assuming full control on July 1. The two events — a court filing and a board meeting — occurring on the same day is the clearest possible illustration of the collision course Memphis and Nashville are now on. Chalkbeat Tennessee reported the lawsuit filing.

The takeover legislation, signed by Governor Bill Lee in May, hands nine political appointees — selected exclusively by Tennessee's top three Republican officeholders — final authority over the district's $1.95 billion budget, all contracts above $50,000, superintendent hiring and firing, and the termination of any district employee, including tenured teachers and principals, without cause or due process. Their terms run through June 2030. Developer Billy Orgel will chair the board; former superintendent Dorsey Hopson, who led the district from 2013 to 2019, is also a member. One seat remains vacant.

The legal challenge argues the takeover unconstitutionally removes authority from a locally elected body, stripping Memphis voters of governance over the schools their children attend. The state's counter-argument is blunter: MSCS has spent years producing some of the worst academic outcomes in Tennessee despite billions in public funding, and the elected board proved incapable of fixing it. Both arguments are substantially correct. The question the lawsuit puts to the courts — and ultimately to the people of Memphis — is whether democratic accountability for failure is preferable to appointed authority with no accountability at all. Tennessee Republicans have made their choice. Memphis parents will live with it either way.

10,000 Arrests. 1,700 Guns. Crime Still Has a Memphis Zip Code.

The Memphis Safe Task Force has surpassed 10,000 total arrests since its September 2025 launch, removing more than 1,708 illegal firearms from city streets. Local Democratic politicians had no choice but to watch and claim the MSTF actually had little effect on crime they claimed was already going down. Observation: the environment has changed somewhat with the indictment of an established Democrat politician and office holder Tami Sawyer and the state takeover of the school district for multiple reasons.

In a single Tuesday operation this month, the task force executed 50 arrests and seized nine illegal guns. The crime numbers that followed are historic: murder down 39.5%, sexual assault down 43%, robbery down 59.6%, and motor vehicle theft — once a defining feature of daily Memphis life — down 69.6% year-over-year. The Memphis Police Department reports overall crime fell 41.5% in the first quarter of 2026 alone.

Carjackings, which had made Memphis a national cautionary tale, are among the sharpest declines. The city closed 2025 with carjackings down 48% from 2024. The task force's approach is straightforward: arrest the people committing crimes, remove the weapons enabling them, and do so continuously rather than in response to individual incidents. It is not a subtle strategy. It is working. The White House credited the task force in a March visit by President Trump; local officials who initially resisted the federal intervention have largely gone quiet.

The uncomfortable context is this: Memphis's crime decline is substantially the product of federal intervention that Memphis's own government did not initiate, did not design, and in some quarters actively resisted. Tennessee Lookout reported in February that in the task force's first two months, only 6% of those arrested appeared to be white — a data point that has driven criticism from civil liberties advocates and prompted protests including March's "No Kings" march downtown. The task force is producing results. It is also concentrating enforcement in Black neighborhoods in a city that is 64% Black. Memphis deserves a public conversation about both facts simultaneously, and its elected officials have not yet been willing to have it.

The larger sustainability problem remains unchanged. The task force's federal resources are not permanent. National Guard deployment ends. When external enforcement withdraws, Memphis will be left with the same structural conditions — concentrated poverty, underfunded schools, weakened family structures — that produced the crime in the first place. Ten thousand arrests buys time. It is not a substitute for the harder work Memphis has avoided for decades.

Shelby County Can't Borrow Money — And the Sheriff Is Already Suing the Mayor Over It

Tennessee Comptroller Jason Mumpower has refused to approve Shelby County's fiscal year 2026 budget — the sixth consecutive year state officials have rejected the county's financial submission. The rejection blocks Shelby County from issuing any debt or borrowing money through the end of June, a constraint that affects capital projects, cash flow management, and the county's ability to respond to financial emergencies. WREG reported that County Mayor Lee Harris plans to meet personally with the comptroller's office. Harris said no projects will be delayed. The comptroller's letter said the county failed to meet "very specific requirements," including providing complete detailed budgets, accounting for negative fund balances, and submitting proper beginning cash balances for all funds.

The budget dysfunction has consequences beyond the comptroller's letter. Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner has filed a separate lawsuit against Mayor Harris alleging the county failed to fulfill legally required budget allocations to the Sheriff's Office. A county that cannot satisfy its own financial reporting requirements and whose elected law enforcement chief is suing the county mayor over money is a county in institutional disorder — regardless of what the mayor's press office says about project timelines. Memphis and Shelby County are asking residents and businesses to trust them with billions in public funds while demonstrating, repeatedly, that they cannot manage the paperwork required to account for those funds to state oversight.

West Memphis 3 DNA Results Due by Month's End — A Verdict Three Decades in the Making

The legal team for Damien Echols said this week that DNA testing on ligatures and hair from the 1993 West Memphis murders of eight-year-olds Michael Moore, Christopher Byers, and Stevie Branch could be completed by the end of July. The evidence — the shoelaces used to hogtie the victims ankle-to-wrist — has been at Bode Technology, a Virginia DNA lab, since last fall. Echols spokesman Lonnie Soury said that if the testing produces a DNA match, the legal team would demand authorities reopen the case. "If we get a hit on somebody's DNA, they'd be hard pressed to walk away from it," Soury told Talk Business & Politics.

Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley were convicted of the murders in 1993 and spent 18 years in prison before being released in 2011 under Alford pleas — a legal maneuver that allowed them to maintain their innocence while acknowledging prosecutors had sufficient evidence to convict. They have maintained their innocence since their arrests. The MVac extraction technology now being used — which vacuums material from evidence to extract DNA rather than using a swab — was not available at the time of trial. The testing was authorized six years ago; its completion has been delayed repeatedly by legal and logistical obstacles.

The case has never left the public consciousness because the circumstances of the original conviction — three teenagers convicted largely on a coerced confession during a period of satanic panic, with no physical evidence linking them to the crime — were always difficult to square with the standards of a fair trial. A DNA result will not undo three decades of damage. It may finally answer the question that has never been satisfactorily resolved: who actually killed those three boys in West Memphis, Arkansas, in 1993.

Planned Left Wing Civil War Style Attack on Trump’s UFC Event Foiled

(6-16-26 BenQQ) In what could have been considered the first shots of a modern civil war fomented by years of left rhetoric against President Trump, the FBI foiled a plot to create a bloodbath at this weekend’s Trump UFC event, according to the FBI this morning, reported by multiple news channels.

On June 14th — President Trump's 80th birthday — the South Lawn of the White House hosted UFC Freedom 250, a celebration of America's 250th anniversary wrapped in octagon wire and pageantry. What the crowd didn’t know was at least 23 conspirators had planned to fly explosive-laden drones over the building while snipers would target the panicked crowd and a final wave of attackers rushed the White House gate, according to media this morning from FBI announcement.

Within four days of finding out, working across 12 field offices in a multi-state sweep, agents unraveled the plot before a single drone lifted off. Five people are now in custody. The digital trail was their undoing — Signal chats discussing drone payloads, travel plans to Fredericksburg, Virginia for pre-attack staging, and an iPhone that cracked open 23 additional users' worth of pre-operational chatter. The sophistication of the plan was real. The execution never got the chance.

The alleged motive is the part that should give every reasonable person pause: the suspects reportedly told investigators their targets were "capitalist elites," "billionaires," and politicians who'd taken money from AIPAC. But the leap from political grievance to coordinated mass murder at a public celebration is the precise definition of the mob logic the Founders feared most: a faction so convinced of its own righteousness it forfeits civilization.

What held here was the system working as designed — not perfectly, not without effort, but effectively. Intelligence gathered, warrants issued, arrests made, lives preserved. The violence stayed hypothetical. That's not a small thing. In a republic, the alternative to due process and lawful dissent isn't romantic rebellion — it's what these five allegedly planned: chaos, death, and the erasure of the very public square they claim to be defending.

De Niro, Hanks, Hollywood Celebrities  Unload on Trump’s UFC Event and America — and America Quits Them

(6.16.26 Benqq) As reported by Mike Zeroh on June 15, Robert De Niro wasted no time after UFC Freedom 250 wrapping his rage in a bow for public consumption. "The fact that we have a con man running the White House and allowing a UFC fight to be streamed on Paramount was an absolute insult to American culture and to our history," De Niro declared, adding, "The MAGA punks that gathered at this event were nothing more than a bunch of sheep clapping like seals."

Then he doubled down: "Don't see my movies. Don't support me because I don't want to be affiliated with such bigots in this country" — and for good measure called Trump supporters "college dropouts" who "lack the logic to know when something is wrong or good or bad."

Another Trump hater Tom Hanks also rails against MAGA.

It's a remarkable self-portrait: a man who built a career on the public's goodwill, now openly firing that public for the sin of enjoying a boxing match on the White House lawn — and in doing so, making the case against himself far more effectively than any critic ever could.

By the way, the TDS suffering DeNiro does not have an earned college degree–only honorary. This makes his crack about Trump supporters being "college dropouts" who "lack the logic" to judge right from wrong a fairly rich bit of self-unawareness.

Further, HollywoodInToto documents him as outright "box office poison," with his recent films consistently underperforming. His chronic Trump attacks have measurably chased off audiences. The upcoming Fockers sequel he's in — also starring Ben Stiller and Ariana Grande, both vocal anti-MAGA voices — is widely expected to flop for exactly that reason.

2025 was a reckoning for Hollywood and its penchant for telling America what to think. Ticket sales for new Hollywood releases dropped 51 percent, with billions in lost revenue. Disney's Snow White remake lost an estimated $170 million. Pixar's Elio posted the worst opening weekend in the studio's 40-year history. Studios are now quietly phasing out ideologically-driven content — which is the market speaking more plainly than any critic could.

Tom Hanks’ Toy Story 5 opens June 19 and has already earned the distinction of being the franchise's lowest-rated film on Rotten Tomatoes before it even hits theaters.

The pattern is consistent: audiences aren't boycotting in some organized way — they're simply spending their money elsewhere, which is the most honest vote there is.

The takeaway: Hollywood is like the new Democratic left itself. Like single minded Trump hysterical Hollywood, Democrats have only a “bundle deal” of unpopular policies: boys in girls sports and dressing rooms, support of outright voter fraud, mindless harangues against a highly successful president, protecting illegal alien criminals while attacking the agency that’s enforcing immigration law, electing outright communists and promoting an ever bigger government of failed policies from education to police protection to local economics. Voters, like movie ticket buyers, are walking away.

Two Different Cases of Claimed Self-Defense: Karmelo Anthony and Dalton “Chud the Builder” Eatherly. Race Adds Fuel. Stand Your Ground Tested.

(6.14.26 BenQQ) In the shadow of the Montgomery County Courthouse in Clarksville, Tennessee, on May 13, Dalton “Chud the Builder” Eatherly faced the kind of raw street justice for which Tennessee’s Stand Your Ground law supposedly exists.

Self-defense expert Andrew Branca (of Law of Self Defense) breaks it down clearly in his analysis: Eatherly was walking away when Chud’s assailant — disabled Army veteran Joshua Fox — allegedly advanced, struck first, and put him in a headlock, escalating a verbal spat into a serious bodily threat. Eatherly, already on edge after a routine debt hearing, drew and fired in response.

There is no duty to retreat in Tennessee. You can use proportional force against an imminent attack. This is classic stand-your-ground territory. (See Branca’s full breakdown here.)

Media paint Chud as the villain for his provocative online style, but Branca cuts through the noise: prior livestream antics don’t strip a man of his right to defend himself when another guy closes the distance and starts swinging. Even the prosecution’s own early account reportedly supports the self-defense narrative more than it buries it.

Race adds fuel to the fire. Chud’s brand is built on race-bait livestreams targeting Black people with slurs and provocations, while Fox, the alleged assailant, is Black. However, critics say Chud’s history makes him the aggressor.

Supporters counter that verbal baiting doesn’t forfeit the legal right to defend against a physical attack once he tried to disengage.

By contrast, Karmelo Anthony’s stabbing case lacked any such sustained racial provocation pattern—his supporters’ self-defense claims were shredded for clear initiation and deadly force against an unarmed teen in a minor scuffle. (See Branca’s analysis here.)

One man, claiming to have been exercising his rights outside a public courthouse, now stares down attempted murder charges. He faces 15-60 years. As of June 14, the main Montgomery County case sits with the grand jury (no public hearing date yet), while a separate Davidson County restaurant case has a next court date of June 17.

In a state that values self-reliance, this case tests Stand Your Ground. A Tennessee jury will decide — but the law appears, at least according to Branca, squarely on Chud’s side. Catch Chudd’s streams here.

Memphis Minute

June 13

Cellphone Images Lead Police to Alleged Child Predator — Public Safety: The Memphis Police Department today arrested an alleged child rapist after more than 100 images found on a used cellphone connected a suspect to crimes spanning two decades or longer. Authorities say the full scope of potential victims is still under investigation. Daily Memphian

SpaceX IPO Makes Musk World's First Trillionaire — Business: SpaceX stock jumped 19% in its Wall Street debut yesterday, closing at $161 per share in what analysts called the largest IPO in history, making Elon Musk the world's first trillionaire. The company, which operates the Colossus AI data centers in Memphis through its xAI acquisition, reached a combined valuation exceeding $1 trillion. CNBC

Flyway Boardwalk Opens at Tom Lee Park — Downtown: A 220-foot elevated boardwalk — two years in the making — opened today at Tom Lee Park, completing the riverfront park's transformation and giving visitors a new elevated view of the Mississippi River from the water's edge. Memphis Flyer

Brooks Museum Opens Berlin Artist's First Solo Show — Arts: The Memphis Brooks Museum of Art today opened the final exhibition to launch in its Overton Park building — the first solo museum show for Berlin-based photographer David Uzochukwu, whose surrealist images explore identity, form, and the body. Daily Memphian

Redbirds Rout Norfolk for Fifth Straight Win — Sports: The Memphis Redbirds beat the Norfolk Tides 10-2 today for their fifth consecutive victory, jumping in front with a five-run second inning to pull away comfortably. Daily Memphian

Blaze Jordan Gets the Call to the Majors — Sports: DeSoto County standout Blaze Jordan was called up to join the St. Louis Cardinals last night in Minneapolis, earning his long-anticipated Major League Baseball debut after a standout minor-league career. Daily Memphian

Ole Miss Drops College World Series Opener — Sports: Ole Miss, making its first College World Series appearance since winning the 2022 national title, fell 6-2 to North Carolina in Omaha today and will face Troy on Sunday to avoid elimination. AP News

Friday, June 12

AutoZone Park Funding Stalls; Restaurant Owners Urge Action — Government: The Memphis City Council yesterday left $5 million in critical HVAC, fire-protection, and MLB compliance funding for city-owned AutoZone Park in limbo after Councilman Chase Carlisle called it a poor investment; the Memphis Restaurant Association responded by urging approval in a letter to the council, which is expected to revisit the issue in two weeks. FOX13 Memphis

Overton Park Shell Reveals 90th-Anniversary Fall Lineup — Music: The Overton Park Shell yesterday announced a fall season celebrating its 90th year, headlined by the Indigo Girls and featuring Gonerfest plus milestone celebrations for Hattiloo Theatre and Opera Memphis. Memphis Flyer

Residents Sue Over Noise from xAI's Southaven Data Center — Business/Tech: Neighbors of xAI's Southaven data center filed suit yesterday over continuous "squealing" and "roaring" from the facility, claiming the noise causes sleep loss, headaches, and persistent ringing in their ears. Memphis Flyer

Pearl Clutching Lawsuits Mount Over Tennessee's New Congressional Maps — Politics: The Supreme Court has ruled racial gerrymandering is unconstitutional, but that doesn’t stop WKNO's Tennessee Politics program yesterday from examining the multiple legal challenges now targeting the state's new congressional maps. As we all know by now, this split Memphis into three Republican-leaning districts. WKNO FM

Man Acquitted in Young Dolph Case Arrested Again — Public Safety: Not quite unsurprisingly, a Memphis man who was acquitted in connection with the 2021 killing of rapper Young Dolph was arrested again yesterday, according to the Memphis Police Department. Daily Memphian

Inspire Community Cafe to Close After Seven Years — Community: Inspire Community Cafe, the Binghampton neighborhood restaurant that opened with a mission to strengthen its community through food and employment, announced it will close this month after seven years of operation. Daily Memphian

SpaceX Expands Turbines in DeSoto County Amid NAACP Lawsuit — Environment: The Southern Environmental Law Center filed new court documents today in the NAACP's lawsuit against SpaceX, claiming the company has added 24 more natural gas turbines at its DeSoto County, Mississippi facility. The additions come even as a class-action suit from Southaven residents alleges near-constant noise and vibrations.

Is it a Documentary Travelogue or is it Democratic Racial Memorex?

A Review of: “What are Tennessee's new districts like? We drove 1,024 miles to see” published on May 28 as a USA TODAY Network/Gannet enterprise piece in the Commercial Appeal by Jack Armstrong, Evan Mealins and Vivian Jones.

(Ben ‘BenQQ’ Harrison 5.31.26) The Commercial Appeal’s long road-trip story on Tennessee’s new congressional districts at first look has the ingredients of strong enterprise journalism: on-the-ground reporting, vivid scenes, named voters, county-level context and a clear attempt to show how abstract map lines affect real people.

But as journalism, it is lacking with its obvious tilt toward the standard Democratic critique of redistricting as expressed in a “man-in-the-street” format. Its central frame is not simply “What are these districts like?” as the title innocent purports to answer.

Rather,  the title should have been “See How strange, unfair and racially troubling these Republican-drawn districts really are.”  Not that I don’t think its a defensible angle for the Commercial Appeal. After all, it is a  partisan paper.  But the whole thing is kind of framed under the guise of a kind of curious travelogue in the mysterious Tennessee inner land of Lilliput, without the narrator Lemuel Gulliver, but the present writers will do.

But I digress in my questionable analogy. The writers treat all their subjects with respect and good will but they quote many voters who are confused, suspicious, angry or alienated by the new map. That left me salivating for those stories, some of which were forthcoming, but the payoff seemed thin considering the setup. Perhaps that’s because native soil Tennesseans are inherently polite and opinely modest. At least that’s always been my impression travelling and working in other sections of the country.

However, several of the most emotionally forceful quotes come from people who describe the change as racial disenfranchisement, cheating or a step backward toward Jim Crow. That’s about as edgy as it gets but the article does not get into it. In the interview with such subjects, citing the false analogies to Jim Crow would have resulted in good journalism in my view.

Yes, Republican or conservative voters are included, but often in ways that make them sound uninformed, casually hostile to Memphis, or crude. One Republican voter says Memphis is dangerous. Another says gerrymandering is fair because Democrats do it.

Another worries about being seen as prejudiced and then uses an insult for liberals. That may be what those people said, but cumulative editing matters: Democrats and redistricting critics are given the moral language of representation and civil rights, while Republicans are represented through resentment, ignorance, or culture-war shorthand. This is as usual in Memphis liberal media pandering to their base.

As I said, this is old fashioned man in the street journalism to position one side.The easiest kind of all. So the reporters drove 1,024 miles, but the story does not explain how those people were chosen, how many people were interviewed, how many declined, or whether the quotes are representative of the districts as a whole. “Most Tennesseans we spoke with” is not the same as “most Tennesseans,” yet the story sometimes leans toward broad conclusions from a small, impressionistic sample.

Whether the CA wants to admit it or not, there is a strong unspoken Republican defense beating around the story’s edges like a trapped bird in a cage. But that cage is too small and the door is locked. Regrettably, the story uses its own limited flaws to say Republicans drew districts to favor their party–duh, yeah–and some Republicans justify it by saying Democrats have done it elsewhere.

Yes, by the way, it is legal to redistrict for partisan advantage. What is not supposed to be legal is redistricting primarily by race. That is the uncomfortable contradiction sitting underneath this whole debate.

Another question for the voters interviewed in the story might have been this: If District 9 was effectively preserved for generations as a race-administered Black Democratic district, did that mean voters of other races inside that same district were less represented all along? Critics now argue that breaking up a majority-Black district amounts to disenfranchisement or voter dilution. But if racial representation is the standard, then what about everyone else who lived under the old arrangement? Were they politically diluted, too?

That is the unresolved logic at the heart of racial redistricting. Once representation is defined by race, every map becomes suspect. The Supreme Court has been right to move the country away from that kind of political sorting, even if the process is messy and long overdue.

Think of the fascinating answers and copy opportunities such a question would generate, but I must say I don’t think USA TODAY corporate would approve.

Back to the story: it says Republicans drew districts to favor their party and notes that some voters justify it by pointing to Democratic redistricting elsewhere. But it does not seriously develop the legal, political or procedural argument from Republican lawmakers: why they say the map is lawful, why they say mid-decade redistricting is justified, how they answer racial-dilution claims, and whether they argue that Memphis had been over-concentrated in one district. Without that, the story becomes a tour of public reaction to Republican power rather than a full examination of the competing case.

And never does the story examine the US Supreme Court case for dismantling racial segregation in the first place. To me, it would have been a good lede: The Supreme Court Takes a Corrective Step in Levelling the Playing Field for Everybody.

Nevertheless, the tone devolves to pandering to traditional Democratic Black voters with reference to affluent Republican suburbs and rural white counties on one side, historically Black Memphis and civil-rights memory on the other. Come on, this is not neutral framing. It nudges the reader toward a conclusion before the policy argument is fully tested.

The story’s best point is that the districts are geographically and culturally awkward. It is legitimate to ask whether a representative can serve Downtown Memphis, Franklin, Columbia and distant rural counties at the same time. But the article left me wanting more on such things as drive times, maps, constituent interest patterns, turnout stats, side by side turnout stats and such.

The piece is not fabricated, nor is it pure Democratic propaganda as sometimes the Commercial Appeal has ventured. It raises real questions about redistricting, but filters them through loaded framing and a thin reporting method. It is worth reading — just read it as a left-leaning narrative, not neutral civic journalism.

Could Anti-ICE Riots Happen Here?

(5.28.26 BenQQ) If you are watching the media this morning, you see a familiar pattern: anti-ICE riots outside Delaney Hall Detention Facility in Newark, New Jersey. They should be a warning shot for Memphis-and other midsized Democrat cities where media has become the mouthpiece of anti-ICE rioters. (There is no ICE detention facility in Memphis, but there is one, the West Tennessee Detention Facility, in Mason, TN.)

What began as another left-wing protest against ICE has now become a national flashpoint: detainees claiming abuse inside, Democratic politicians demanding entry, rioters storming the gates, federal officers assaulted, and two protesters arrested after DHS said agents were sprayed with a chemical substance. This is the familiar modern protest formula for Democrats: declare the system illegitimate, the detainees innocent, federal officers the villains, then act shocked when the crowd starts treating a government facility like enemy territory.

Most damaging rioters’ claim: that these detainees have “committed no crime.” Untrue. llegal entry itself can be a federal criminal offense under 8 U.S.C. § 1325. They can be subject to immediate deportation.

The statute covers entering at an improper place or time, eluding inspection, or gaining entry by fraud, and a first offense can carry a fine or up to six months in jail. Illegal reentry after removal is also a federal crime under 8 U.S.C. § 1326, with higher penalties in some cases.

Most illegal aliens when detained by ICE are removed, but the millions who are still residing in the U.S. remain.

Regardless, the left’s rhetorical trick is to turn enforcement action into “kidnapping,” every detention center into a “camp” and every ICE officer into a Nazi villain is supported by media coverage masquerading as “objective” and Democratic politicians milking it all. Hence, they are unrestrained in calling political opponents racists, Nazis and “enemies of the state.” Thereafter, anything goes, including assasination attempts, with little, if any “objective” media coverage.

In Memphis, the coverage has already shown the same soft-focus pattern. Action News 5 reported student walkouts at Overton High, Memphis Rise Academy, Central High and Maxine Smith STEAM Academy as anti-ICE protests, but the obvious questions almost answer themselves: Why were students out of class in the middle of a school day? Who organized, encouraged or excused the walkouts? Were these teenagers reacting to verified facts, or repeating activist language handed to them by adults?

The fair question for Memphis is not whether every demonstrator is a rioter. The question is whether a small number of true believers, told day after day that ICE is “kidnapping” people and federal officers are an occupying force, might eventually decide that storming a gate or attacking a government facility is not lawbreaking, but “resistance.” Any news coverage should balance in between those polarities with good journalistic questions of the “stars” of the report.

National DOJ Probe into Left Activists Raises Questions — But No Memphis Links So Far

(Reported May 23-25, 2026) The Department of Justice and Treasury Department are investigating prominent left-wing figures including Hasan Piker and Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin. Subpoenas focus on their March Cuba aid trips but extend to potential foreign influence activities, including coordination with Cuban officials, fundraising, and possible acceptance of foreign support without proper registration.

Conservative or Republican media say the DOJ and Treasury are finally holding Hasan Piker, Medea Benjamin, and Code Pink accountable for Cuba trips that likely violated sanctions while probing deeper into foreign money and influence ops. America shouldn't let influencers and activists act as unpaid (or paid) agents for a hostile communist regime that jails dissidents and aligns with our adversaries.

Democrats and their media say this is pure political intimidation. The Trump DOJ is weaponizing sanctions and foreign agent probes to target activists like Piker and Code Pink for delivering aid to Cuba and criticizing U.S. policy — a blatant attempt to silence dissent and smear humanitarian work as "foreign influence."

Even though local Democrat and/or left wing groups have mounted demonstrations and activities in Memphis, there is no reported connections to the DOJ investigation.

Media Review: The Burger King Shooting-Have It Your Way

(5.23.26 BenQQ) Don’t think there’s much difference in media in Memphis? Below I’ve linked to 3 TV stations and one online news medium with short review comments on their stories.

The basic story: May 31, Burger King on Norh Hollywood near James Road in Frayser. Multiple reports say Memphis Safe Task Force officers and DEA agents were attempting to serve an aggravated assault warrant when Darrin Pigram was shot.

Just like many of the stories where Black Americans lost their lives during police encounters, something inevitable happens. A racial/political dynamic begins to play out first in social media, then in news stories and then through culture itself. Good media resist such impulses by at least trying to remain “objective” and not pander to its audience. Admittedly, that takes some discipline when your audience buys products and services of your advertisers.

Days after a Memphis Safe Task Force/DEA operation ended up shooting and killing 41 year-old Darrin Pigram during an attempted arrest at a Frayser Burger King, basic facts are in conflict. Did Pigram reach for a gun? Was he armed? Was he just an average guy rebuilding his life after being down and out?

Local media outlets separate into distinct camps of tone, emphasis, and journalistic approach.

WMC Action News 5: "Loved ones remember man slain in attempted warrant pickup at Memphis Burger King: ‘He was gunned down’"

Action News 5 accompanying web site article leads this way: “Family members want justice for the man shot and killed by the Memphis Safe Task Force at his job at a Frayser Burger King.”

The lede might have you believe the Memphis Safe Task Force and DEA wantonly shot a black man while he was at work, a man who was going to church, had made friends with his pastor, Tiger Blue was his favorite color, he had loving family members, was making an honest living and putting his life back together. Very sensational.

After about a minute of that emotional lede, Channel 5 reports the known facts: officers were serving an arrest warrant for aggravated assault when Pigram reached for a weapon, according to officers. A DEA agent fired on Pigram.

This story should be considered controversial at best with its emotionally sympathetic coverage. The station devoted major attention to the vigil, his church involvement, grieving relatives, and questions about whether he was armed. The reporting leaned heavily into human drama and racial/community themes while still including official law-enforcement statements.

However, it acknowledges at the end major questions remain and the Burger King surveillance video will be critical. Too late too little. Link

LocalMemphis / ABC24: ”Memphis Safe Task Force shoots, kills man while serving arrest warrant in Frayser”

With a straight news structure and balanced reporting among a plethora of early loose facts, ABC24 reporter Shakina Davis, delivered a balance of statements from the DEA and TBI as well as from relatives. It’s here where we first hear an officer allegedly shot Pigram in the back.

Nevertheless, ABC24 minimized emotional framing, and avoided a biased editorial tone. Compared with competitors, it showed more restraint. It relied less on neighborhood texture or even investigative skepticism, which would have been easily justified after the ‘shooting in the back’ allegation. Link

WREG News Channel 3: "Shots fired at Frayser Burger King"

WREG Reporter Even Copeland emphasized the immediacy of the scene itself — police vehicles,national guardsmen, FBI agents, traffic disruption, and unfolding developments. Its approach was fast-paced television crime reporting with relatively little social or political context. Tone was procedural and visual rather than interpretive. It got the known facts laid down with minimum baggage. Link

The Daily Memphian: "DEA agents fatally shoot suspect at Frayser Burger King"

Reporter Jody Callahan of The Daily Memphian treated the shooting more as a policy and institutional  story than a neighborhood tragedy. Its coverage focused on the Safe Task Force, investigative oversight, and accountability questions. Compared with television, Callahan’s story has stronger editorial discipline with tighter sourcing and less sensational presentation. Link

Trump is Now Flying Back But With What?

(5.15.26 BenQQ news commentary) Few politicians see any value in geo politics. Most people don’t even talk about foreign policy unless that policy affects their distant relatives in some far away country. That’s a tiny subset of voters so politicians don’t have to worry much about ethnicities being marauded by neighboring world powers. There are of course news spats of immigrants in the U.S. protesting oppressive world leaders from the likes of Cuba, Russia, Iran and China.

Such was an incident when Chinese President Hu Jintao visited the White House in 2006. Wenyi Wang, or Dr. Wang Wenyi), then 47 years old, disrupted the arrival ceremony and press event. She was a reporter for the Epoch Times, a publication affiliated with the Falun Gong spiritual movement, which is banned in China.

President George Bush immediately groveled and kowtowed to Jintao. Instead of ignoring the incident-which would have sent a real message-Bush apologized to a leader of a country that everyone knew (and still knows) practiced systemic brutal oppression against that religious sect. No matter, affairs of state take precedence.

By the way, Wang faced charges that carried up to 6 months and a fine of $5,000 for harassment to threats against a foreign official. Charges were later dropped after Falun Gong members protested that disrupting an event in the name of human rights should be dismissed.

By the way, such similar “free speech” stunts in China earn miscreants long imprisonment and extrajudicial measures, possible “disappearance” or black site detention, torture or forced “transformation,” long term surveillance, job loss, “collective punishment” to family, travel bans and more.

I haven’t seen any protests domestically from Chinese immigrants over Trump’s current negotiations with Xi Jinping who is now informally considered “leader for life.” Perhaps that’s where Trump got the joke, (I think its a joke) he could run again for a third term.

However, I see similar patterns of previous presidents in Trump and his “good friend” Xi Jinping. Of course, no one would call a good friend who was a murderous kingpin of a gangster organization, at least not without some sort of a payoff. For a president who I think views himself as a kind of international CEO motivated by a combination of wanting to get to get a good deal for the “company,” (I refer not to the CIA but the country.) as well as ego, Trump, I hope, is working for at least some multiple payoffs that benefit America.

One can only hope that when Trump calls Xi his “good friend,” the returns are measured in benefits to America rather than merely another installment in Trump’s seemingly endless search for applause, leverage, and the ego-stroking illusion that he alone can cut the world’s greatest deal.

I, as still a Trump supporter, am not interested in helping China advance, as Trump said he wants to do. Curious if not puzzling. And maybe for some Trump supporters, that puzzlement may grow into disillusionment—just when the 2026 midterms are going the Republicans way.

—

5.8.26 Update-Gov. Signs Redistricting Bill

Gov. Bill Lee yesterday signed a new redistricting bill that would divide Memphis and Shelby County’s 9th Congressional District into three separate districts. The 9th District was Tennessee’s only congressional district created with a majority-Black population.

A recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling limiting the use of race as a factor in the American electoral system has made majority-Black districts more vulnerable to redistricting challenges. Yesterday, emotional protests from Democratic lawmakers and supporters disrupted proceedings in the Tennessee legislature following the overwhelming vote approving the new redistricting plan.

Popular popcaster Benny Johnson called the event an “insurrection.” He compared it to the 2021 event in Washington, DC when Trump supporters protesting their perception of massive illegal votes stormed the capital. No one was arrested for the Tennessee government disruption while dozens were arrested and held for years for the DC event.

Commentary on Redistricting

Racial redistricting grew out of the 1965 Voting Rights Act of 1965, which required states to draw election districts that did not dilute minority voting strength and gave minority voters a fair chance to elect candidates of their choice. In practical human terms, that meant race.

But somewhere along the way from then till now, we outgrew the need to have race as a standard. It was back then blatantly unconstitutional but politically convenient, if not politically demanded.  While the latter may be OK with the likes of Hakim Jeffries and Democrats, the U.S. Supreme Court found there is no constitutional argument to base representation on race.

Indeed, our own 9th district more or less of Shelby County is today 62-64% black, but voters have elected a white mayor and a U.S. Senator. In those cases, most voters seemed to be saying being black did not matter.

But then let the local establishment media like the Commercial Appeal, TV stations and politicians who distinguish themselves in the competition in being the most racially progressive and we never go back to non-racial political arguments. It seems the local body politic was resensitized to race regardless glaring local issues. This is a setback.

That’s why you ended up with a US Representative spending his first term wasting millions in the pursuit of failed false claims and 2 impeachments of Trump. Steve Cohen never apologized because his constituents never heard the substantial counter coverage in local media due in large part to local media never challenging his radical positions.

Local TV remained the dominant news source around 2020: roughly 50% of Americans regularly got news from television, with local broadcasts forming the core of daily TV news consumption.  (Source: Pew/local-news trust)

In the same year, about 30% of black Americans watched YouTube for news. Today: 43%.

Back then, among older Black viewers (65+), broadcast television accounted for nearly 69% of all media use, making local evening news broadcasts especially influential in urban Black communities.

Given the fact (or my opinion) that local TV (and print) news mostly if not always still feed only content favorable to their dominant viewership, it is little surprise that urban black metros remain Democratic. Despite the massive complex of legacy media reached by regular people, content remains overwhelmingly Democrat favorable, in my opinion.

But that is changing–not rapidly, but changing. Consider: conservative black commentator Xaviaer DuRousseau has roughly 747,000 TikTok followers (Wikipedia) while liberal Gen Z political streamer Dean Withers has over 73 million YouTube views, illustrating the scale of online political media replacing traditional TV/news ecosystems.

So while Dist. 9 remains overwhelmingly Democratic, online conservative and independent media have made measurable inroads with younger Black voters and politically dissatisfied Democrats in Memphis–if modern stats apply.

Black voters remain Democratic overall, but younger Black voters — especially men — are consuming far more political content through YouTube, podcasts, X, and influencer-driven media ecosystems, where conservative and anti-establishment voices now compete directly with traditional Democratic-aligned media. (source: Pew Research Center)

So here’s the take away. You will continue to see crowd outbursts in places like Memphis where there likely will be district redrawing. But old line racial demographics are changing–to the better, as the recent media consumption I think demonstrates. Now recognized more and more: real do not revolve around race, but solutions that now benefit everybody equally.

Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court  struck down racial gerrymandering by a 6-3 vote. This vote will allow the redrawing of a number of congressional maps in states that had been holding elections per the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Heralding a new era, the court made it clear racial considerations in drawing congressional maps were flatly unconstitutional.

GOP strategist Alex DeGrasse speaking on Steve Bannon’s War Room this morning, called this supreme court vote “massive.” Bannon said states should immediately hold special sessions to adopt new congressional maps that could be drawn up for the midterm elections.

According to expected seat changes, the GOP stands to gain 5 seats, though other strategists say the Republicans could gain more.

Further, they say this could lay the groundwork to get some of the RINO (Republicans in name only) out of their seats to be replaced by a more MAGA consistent congressional voting base.

MAGA members seem to be sure they can now retain control the House in the face of threatened Democratic impeachments, not unlike the kind launched twice by Memphis Representative Steve Cohen (D) during Trump’s first term. Even though both of his oust-Trump campaigns failed, he devoted much of his personal attention, as well as tax payer resources, in a full time national media campaign calling Trump a racist and crook, among other unfounded things.

We have raised the question whether Cohen should be considered an unindicted co-conspirator as a result of his supporting the prosecutions and DNI setups the Biden DOJ used against Trump and associates during his first term.

Considering the Supreme Court’s decision yesterday, another racial gerrymandering case in Virginia, is expected to be struck down by the state supreme court soon.

Another Democrat Reportedly Threatens Violence on Republicans and One of Their own--Fetterman

(5.7.26 unedited from https://chatgpt.com) Reports surfaced this week about a Pennsylvania man named Raymond Chandler III — who had recently announced a Democratic primary challenge to John Fetterman for 2028 — being arrested after allegedly leaving violent voicemails threatening a member of Congress, that lawmaker’s daughter, and President Trump.

The reporting says the threats included graphic references to slitting the throats of the congressman and his daughter. Some social-media posts and partisan outlets identified the target as Fetterman or “Fetterman’s daughter,” but the federal complaint described the target only as an “unnamed member of Congress.” Mainstream reports have not definitively confirmed the threatened relative was actually connected to Fetterman.

Authorities say Chandler also allegedly urged the member of Congress to assassinate President Trump in another voicemail. He was arrested by the FBI and Secret Service and faces federal threat-related charges.

Supreme Court Makes a "Massive" Decision on Congressional Maps. Racial Gerrymandering is Out

(4.29.26 BenQQ) The U.S. Supreme Court today in a Louisiana redistricting case struck down the use of racial gerrymandering in a 6–3 decision. The ruling is expected to lead to the redrawing of congressional maps in several states that had been operating under provisions of the 1965 Civil Rights Act.

The court said racial considerations in drawing congressional districts are unconstitutional, marking what some observers describe as a significant shift in redistricting law.

Republican strategist Alex Degrasse, speaking on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, called the ruling “massive.” Bannon said states should immediately convene special legislative sessions to adopt new congressional maps in time for the midterm elections.

Some political strategists estimate the GOP could gain as many as five seats under expected map changes, though commentators say the number could be higher.

Some commentators also argue the ruling could influence future primary challenges, including efforts to replace Republican incumbents viewed as out of step with the MAGA base. This group is what commonly is referred to as "RINOs (Republicans In Name Only.)

In Virginia, a separate racial‑gerrymandering case is pending before the state Supreme Court. Considering the Supreme Court decision today, analysts expect much the same from the state court. That gerrymandered map drawn by Democrats is said to look like a "monstous lobster" with a tail on the Potomac and claws Richmond and the West Virginia border. (Reason.com) This new map in said to take away representation of 49% of state voters.

Supporters of former President Donald Trump say the decision strengthens their chances of holding the House majority. They point to past impeachment efforts by Rep. Steve Cohen, D‑Tenn., who introduced articles of impeachment against Trump twice during his first term. Both attempts failed. We reported on Cohen's language and accusations in media during these campaigns in which he called Trump a racist and crook, among other unsupported invectives.

We have questioned Cohen’s role in actively supporting investigations into Trump. These investigations under the Trump DOJ are expected to bring indictments.

Bomb Threat at Bass Pro Pyramid?

(4.22.26 12:26 pm) We have run across reports of a bomb threat at the downtown Bass Pro. This is the live Youtube source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbfW_AGf_UU. We saw no local news confirmation at the time of this post.

Something to Think About: Is the Outcome for the Iranian People Still in the MIx of War’s End?

(Opinion by BenQQ) A “deal” (formerly referred to as a treaty) even on weak terms, gives Trump another notch in his peace belt. Don’t get me wrong. In most cases, ending a war is a good thing. But not when it is purchased at the ongoing expense of people victimized by dictatorial theocratic regimes. In other words, leaving in power small groups of privileged clerics who kill, torture and make your family and friends disappear if you have uttered a political or religious disbelief.

I hope Trump has been fully informed of the mullah’s and Islamist judiciary announcements they would continue to kill, usually by hanging, of demonstrators. Only last week, did the regime say they sentenced a couple to death who had “acted against national security.” Similarly, the regime did sentence a nineteen year old professional wrestler to death.

Rarely does the media ask about the Iranian people: Trump supporting media seem to want to avoid it because it is not sufficiently MAGA enough and anti-Trump media seem to think its irrelevant. Maybe both media camps are afraid Trump would try to publicly humiliate them for asking such inappropriate questions.

Such questions could be, “Mr President, what are the outcomes do you want to see for the Iranian people after war’s end? How will that happen? Is one condition to at least unfettered freedom of the use of the internet? Will set up an international jurisprudence body to haul in government killers and their administrators to face capital charges based on evidence and testimonials?

So at any rate, I have seen no reporter ask Trump about the estimated 40,000 anti-government demonstrators who have been killed plus the remaining millions who intellectually and physically imprisoned.

Conjecture: Does the regime think Trump’s weak spot is his overwhelming desire to be credited with ending another war? One he justifiably launched under both world security and people’s freedom?

Two months ago, Trump told the Iranian people, “Iranian Patriots… TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!!… HELP IS ON ITS WAY.”  

Perhaps hinting at a plan for the people,Trump said at the start of strikes on Iran: “When we are finished, take over your government and It will be yours to take” and “Now is the time to seize control of your destiny” and “America is backing you with overwhelming strengt.”  But little else has been said since then on behalf of plans to aid them.

So do the Mullah’s think Trump has got himself  bogged down in "negotiations" on their promises to behave?

However, perhaps Trump does have something up his sleeve for the liberation of the Iranian people. Consider, despite Trump’s abysmal treatment of Ukrainian President Vlodomyr Zelenskey–the man who stayed to fight an overwhelming a Russian enemy in the face of Biden’s feckless offer of a ‘ride’ out of the country. It now seems to be working out for Ukraine. Ukrainians seem to be “obliterating” the Russians thanks to Ukrainian stalwart genius and Trump’s weapons supply policies, among other things.

So, when all this is over, will the Iranian people continue to be brutalized by their own government? If that government is left standing, the answer is obviously yes. A rat doesn’t change its diseased microbes. And those microbes could be the Republican’s undoing. As news creeps out about ongoing Iranian slaughter by their own government, a 21st killing ground Trump could have stopped but didn’t, Democrats just may have something to crow about.

Democrats could say: Trump abandoned our friends who waved American flags in the face of our enemy, to die in the darkest place on earth, a middle east North Korea, that is guaranteed to pick up again in all areas of nuclear capacity and oppression, despite Trump’s temporary gunboat diplomacy that left things well undone.

Trump may be looking at history or his own legacy or both. He keeps things close to his chest, like any CEO. Despite the above, I’d bet on a positive outcome for the Iranian people after all of this is over.

Democrat Fund Raising Machine ActBlue Called Out for Fraudulent Donations

Perhaps putting the Democratic Party key fundraising tool at risk, the House Republicans say after a New York Times bombshell report that ActBlue’s CEO misled Congress about organizational safeguards against illegal donations.

Internal legal memos reportedly warned the platform was at “substantial risk” of foreign donations due to weaker vetting standards. Investigators claim fraud rules were loosened in 2024. Apparently ActBlue did not require CVV card security codes in donations until the middle of the federal election cycle of 2023-2024. By that time, critics argue, foreign money had already been processed.

Reports have surfaced that many people unknowingly made small online donations through ActBlue to Democratic campaigns.

Democratic defenders argue that CVV codes are not required on all online credit card transactions. Similarly, they argue much the same regarding voter ID.

Federal law is clear: it is straight up illegal for foreign citizens to contribute to US campaigns.

Memphis Residents and Regional Officials Tout Crime Reduction at Memphis Safe Task Force Roundtable

(3.25.26 BenQQ) President Trump, regional officials, and speakers Monday tout the accomplishments of the Memphis Safe Task Force in crime reduction, related statistics and enforcement.

As a result of the Task Force the media had reported crime reduction down by:
43% serious crime, including a 37% decrease in homicides,
56% in robberies,
40% in sexual assaults,
68% in vehicle thefts,
32% in aggravated assaults and burglaries,a 65% increase in “crime solvability.”

Further, many officials said crime was already dropping when the Task Force started operations in Memphis. Media and critics highlighted some alleged local abuses and framed some ICE stories as intrusive. (I have written about them.) Little acknowledgement from rescuing children or reducing crime.

However, Trump cited the following figures which apparently were supported by the people at the roundtable.

Trump said on:
Crime reduction

“Murders are down 77% from the peak”
“Robberies are down 60%”
“Auto theft is down 74%”

Enforcement
“7,000 criminals have been arrested.”
“More than 1,100 illegal guns have been seized.”
“More than 1,000 pounds of narcotics have been seized.”
“More than 150 missing children have been rescued.”

Regardless the discrepancy between the reported and Monday's roundtable figures, none existed between speakers, especially two local residents who sat at the roundtable and supported the Task Force wholeheartedly: Tim Pugh of Pugh’s Flowers and Dalisia Ballinger, a resident of what she described as her formerly crime ridden neighborhood.

Ballinger was the only speaker to receive a standing ovation. Here are her remarks.

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Trump Comes to Memphis Today

(3-23-26 BenQQ about two hours ago) Speaking before a gaggle of reporters before flying to Memphis today at a meeting, the location of which was not publicly revealed by at least local media, with his Memphis Safe Task Force, officials and media, President Trump handled a flurry of questions. A reporter asked him about a 43% reduction in crime in the city. Trump said the Task Force meeting had been set up before the Iran situation had started.

He then veered toward Iran, including his holding off destruction of Iranian power facilities and “Sleepy Joe Biden” allowing in illegal aliens, his approval of allowing Elon Musk funding the Democrat pay freeze of ICE agents as well as other topics. At just about the same time news of a Loyola University student allegedly murdered by an illegal immigrant, reportedly who had been released twice from custody, hit the air.

Crime in Memphis March 19

• North Memphis Shooting
The Memphis Police Department responded to a shooting in North Memphis that left at least one person injured, with no immediate arrests and the motive under investigation, and WREG News Channel 3 reports officers were called to the scene in the afternoon and are reviewing evidence.

• Retail Robbery Attempt
Memphis police said an armed suspect attempted to rob a retail business but fled without obtaining cash or merchandise, and FOX13 reports the suspect left before officers arrived and remains at large.

• East Memphis Vehicle Break-Ins
Officers responded to multiple vehicle break-ins reported overnight into Thursday in East Memphis, where unknown suspects targeted cars with visible valuables, and Local 24 News reports residents described a spike in overnight thefts across several neighborhoods.

• Cordova Barricade Situation
In Cordova, Memphis police detained a suspect after a domestic disturbance escalated into a barricade situation that ended without injuries, and FOX13 reports negotiators were called to the scene before the suspect surrendered.

• Ongoing Package Thefts
Authorities reported continued package thefts across neighborhoods, with suspects targeting unattended deliveries outside homes. WREG News Channel 3 reports police are urging residents to secure deliveries as thefts persist.

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If the Save America Act Fails, Another Kind of Nuclear Bomb Hits

(3.3.26) The real nuclear bomb: If Thune fails to put up the ‘talking filibuster’ in the Senate so Democrat politicians are forced to individually declare their opposition to requiring every American voter to show proof of citizenship, not only will it backfire on Democrats but Republicans as well.

Some will say this would show Deep State fingers–moribund but still grasping–are still hard at work. Hand-in-hand with this are the millions of illegal aliens Biden let into the country for the sole purpose, now recognized by all except the most ideological (or dense), as a ruse to increase Democratic voters to make the Democratic Party the permanent arbiter of power in America.

This will be the most glaring proof that the Democratic power class is working without consent of even their people. Even Democrats that are said to have 79% support of the act, now see American voting systems are seriously under attack.

Perhaps Democrats realize the Save America Act paves the way for millions of foreign demographics to suddenly  be injected into our system. If that happens regular lives, Democrats included, would be impacted to the negative: more government expense, taxes and less services. Forget about education and crime. But say goodbye to traditional Democrat values. However, many realize even those values went out long ago.

But then consider Republicans. They are at risk of losing it all, as well, if the Save America Act fails. Why? The survival of every populist movement depends on key issues. The Save America Act is one of those.

Unless it is passed, both RINOs and Dems will have sent a blunt message to the American people: we don’t care about the primacy of a fair vote–for any American citizens. That will be the "nuclear bomb" that breaks everything.

Cohen Again Refuses to Do His Job

(2/22/26 Benqq) Memphis Democrat Representative Steve Cohen announced he would again not attend President Trump’s State of the Union Address tomorrow. And, again, the reasons are much the same. Same old reasons for the same old audience.

Says he, Says me:

“I have not attended Trump State of the Unions in the past and there’s even less reason to attend this year. What would I hear if I did – more defense of ICE immigration crackdowns and border patrol lawlessness?”

That argument has generally failed in Memphis. Resident African Americans have generally appreciated the reduction in violent crime as a result of Trump’s Safety Task Force, as per their videos on the internet. Even local politicians have reluctantly had to accede unless face the wrath of of at least much of their own constituency.

“More justification for tearing down the iconic East Wing of the White House for an unneeded vanity ballroom and for slapping his name on the Institute of Peace and the Kennedy Center?”

That is an issue? Most Every president has made some sort of plant impact on the White House. Naturally, moreover, Cohen doesn’t even recognize Trump is a builder. Somehow Cohen and his barkers got the memo to oppose construction of the new ballroom. I have not heard one average Democrat express one word of opposition. As far as Trump’s name goes, he did win two, and probably three, general elections. Does that not merit “slapping” his name on things? If that is the big issue, the Democrats have no issues.
Or you are jealous because despite your 2 terms, no one seems to want to slap your name on even a garbage truck?

More excuses for pardoning fraudsters, January 6 felons, political whores and Trump’s sports heroes?

More people are now just beginning to understand the January 6 “felons” were overcharged, oversentenced and rammed through a biased judicial system similar to Joe Stalin’s except for Joe Stalin we had Joe Biden. Hey, and speaking of “pardoning fraudsters,” everyone remembers Biden pardoning most of his criminal family. Cohen’s upstanding ethics was really on top of it then.

“False claims of bringing down the cost of utilities and the affordability of groceries?”

Here is where headway has been made in just over a year in the economy, whether you go around branding them as lies or not:

1. Gas Prices and Fuel Costs–this influences everything. Best progress.
2. Inflation–so does this. Real progress.
3. Taxes and Take-Home Pay–after only a year, this is beginning to shift.
4. Housing Affordability, which always takes longer than anything else.

“Fantasies of creating a new health care program?”

Obama created a health care program that paid the insurance company executives. Trump wants to pay people directly–while Robert Kennedy undeniably is working to make the nation healthy by jettisoning bad diets, ingredients and industrial food. If all that is a fantasy, Democrats must take responsibility for keepings us all living in a realistic nightmare.

“I don’t need to hear the lies and predictable banality from this offensive and out-of-touch president.”

Without support of facts, your propaganda falls flat.

And speaking of propaganda, your attending an opposing political agit-prop circus instead of the real thing betrays your responsibility to Republicans and Democrats alike.

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MEXICO IN CHAOS. This is what insurrection looks like.

(2.22.26 afternoon BenQQ via reports) The Mexican resort of Puerto Vallarta, where Americans live and vacation, is at the center of the conflict between CJNG (New Generation Cartel) and the government. Reportedly the CJNG leader, El Menjo, was assassinated by Mexican forces with the help of U.S. intelligence. Then all hell broke out.

CJNG is attacking everything, according to reports.

Trump previously last year offered help in kinetically helping the Mexican government in fighting the cartels. He was rebuffed. Cartels have also penetrated the U.S. states. Cartels have been called “pure evil.”

Puerto Vallarta seems to be heavily impacted by explosives and fire.

CJNG launched an attack on the Puerto Vallarta airport, causing hundreds to run to planes and blocked roads. Video shows civilian buses that are getting destroyed.

The World Cup, which is scheduled in June, is now indefinitely destabilized.

Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum reportedly asked for help from President Trump in neutralizing El Mencho. Shaunbaum has been hostile to Trump ihtervention up till now.

Direct confrontation has occurred on the outskirts of Jalisco.

The U.S. Embassy has issued security alerts for six states.

From narco terrorists: warn residents to stay at home claiming they will target anybody starting at 2 PM this afternoon. Cartels are warning they will enter hotels if their demands are not meant. They said they would kill adults, but not children.

We suggest: watch what Trump does when they kill Americans.

Their demands: 1. release the body of ‘El Mencho. 2. Every person responsible for his death released to them.
Perhaps CJNG thought Biden was still in office.

Incoming Source: Tousi TV

Man Shot and Killed with Shotgun and Gas Can at Mar-A-Lago

(2.22.26 9:00 AM) A man in his twenties reportedly carrying a shotgun and gas can was fatally shot this morning at Trump’s Mira-Lago, according to County Sheriff Rick Bradshaw. The Sheriff said in a news conference the man was shot after he raised the shotgun at confronting officers. Some commenters are calling this another assassination attempt. Update: name of person shot: Austin Tucker Martin.

Why Wanda Halbert can run again — Even With “Term Limits”— but that doesn’t mean she should.

Yes, Shelby County Clerk Wanda Halbert is term-limited in 2026 — but that does not mean she is barred from the ballot. Let’s briefly unpack:

In Shelby County, officials are restricted to two consecutive terms in the same office, not two terms in county government overall. That’s state law. Halbert has served two terms as county clerk, so she cannot seek a third term to that position. But she can legally run for a different office — including criminal court clerk. So, the law stops a third term in the same job, not a run for a different job.

Now let’s look at Halbert and Sawyer:

Halbert has pulled election permits for Shelby County Clerk, Shelby Criminal Court Clerk and Shelby County Trustee. Its head scratching she pulled for County Clerk in which she has already served the term limits. Perhaps she thinks that is just a technicality.

Tami Sawyer has pulled petitions for her current job as Shelby County General Sessions Court Clerk.

Both have had controversial, if not embarrassing, episodes. Halbert with numerous performance issues and Sawyer with a public confrontation with a guard.

As of today, Halbert has one opponent for County Clerk, Democrat Arriell Gipson Martin and no opponent for Criminal Court Clerk. However, clerk races traditionally fill late. Others are expected to file. For Shelby County Trustee, her opponent is Democrat Riginald Milton.

Halbert’s criticized weaknesses are:

• long lines in the offices for vehicle registrations, new license plates and dealer packets
• backlogs became so severe that Memphians waited in long lines in extreme heat, some reportedly actually fainting. The office had to shut down multiple times to catch up. County commissioners later said the office had been deluged with complaints about poor service and long wait lines.
• a Caribbean while all this was going on, though she described it as a working vacation
• audit, financial reporting disputes
• lease and management issues
• policy implementations regarding vehicle registration fee and
• various disputes with county government.

Finally, full disclosure, this writer was loudly denied service after having to step outside of the Austin Peay registration office to make a phone call–even though employees put up a sign declaring people who had legally to comply with registrations, as “customers.” Story in archives.

Despite all this, Halbert has never faced removal from office by commissioners.

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Of Note: Democrats Are Working Against Democrats, according to Black Independent Podcaster

(BenQQ 2.17.26) Citing among other things Columbia University’s bending under pressure to shut down a career day in which ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) would participate, independent podcaster Davory Darkins argues that Democrats are hurting other Democrats over ICE. Here is a 3 minute video I pulled from Darkins' video on YouTube.

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Nick Shirley Warns America

(2.26.17 BenQQ) Nick Shirley, the now famous independent reporter who uncovered what few if any legacy media would dare do, that is, report on the massive billions of dollars in theft of government money set for the use by the needy in Minneapolis. Shirley just returned from another one of  his stories–and his message is not good for America.

Shirley appeared on Rob Finnerty’s primetime news show Finnerty on Newsmax tonight with a simple warning: don’t let Muslims take over your country or you’ll lose your traditions and your country as you know it.

Shirley, an independent journalist and influencer, just got back from England where he reported on the “Islamification” (my term) of England that is apparently operating under separate Sharia law to some degree. A nation of guilt ridden liberals oh so repentant about their global colonization of victim peoples hundreds of years ago, has opened their country to Mullahs and Mosques.

It has fast become catastrophic in a number of ways as millions of persons who has not assimilated in language, culture or religion were allowed to move into England. The Finnerty segment with Shirley had not been uploaded at time of writing.

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Two Democratic States Reveal Possible Parallels in Public Corruption

(2.6.20) The Washington Post reports today that another Democratic run state is awash in fraud. This time California. Coming after the California Attorney-General Rob Bonta dismissed it all as “baseless,” the Small Business Administration announced questionable COVID-era loans amounting to $8.6 billion.
By comparison some officials estimate the Somali Minnesota fraud to be about $9 billion. Parallels: Minnesota is run by a former Democratic presidential candidate Tim Walz. California is run by wannabe president Gavin Newsome. Story

correction: We originally wrote Missouri. It was replaced with Minnesota.

Owner of Memphis Grizzlies Reported to be Selling Equipment to Russian Military

(1.29.26) In a stunning story sure to turn local, if not Washington, heads, Robert Pera, owner of the Memphis Grizzlies, is reported to be helping Russia kill Ukrainian civilians, according to a site that says it, "publishes investigative and global reporting." One expert said in the Hunterbrook Media article, by most any stretch of the current Russian sanctions, this is illegal.

Damichael Cole reported today in the Memphis Commercial Appeal digital edition that the Pera story appeared in Hunterbrook Media two days ago. Hunterbrook apparently owns Hunterbrook Capital, an investment firm, which it says may take stock positions based on the company's reporting. It takes no advertising, according to its web site.

The Hunterbrook article said that, among other options open to the government in a non-compliance issue, “the civil — and potentially criminal — liability a company faces for these types of compliance failures can be significant.

The U.S. government warns that companies face administrative penalties including the ‘denial of export privileges, and placement of individuals and entities on lists that restrict or prohibit their involvement in export and reexport transactions,’ as well as monetary penalties up to ‘twice the value of the transaction.’ ”

Later on today Commercial Appeal reporter Jack Armstrong delved  specifically into the dealings of Pera's company with the Russian military, Interestingly, Robert Pera is mentioned nowhere as of today in its corporate site ui.com.

The Hunterbrook Media story.
The Commercial Appeal story 1 and story 2 as of 1:21 PM today.

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A Fake Protest Song for Fake Victims for a Fake Cause

The country really doesn't need an anthem that celebrates "folks" who broke in, much less victimized, Americans.

Opinion by BenQQ

(1.28.26) Presumably Bruce Springsteen was so incensed at the recent shootings of possibly paid interrupters getting injured by federal agents doing their jobs, he said he wrote and performed this in a couple of days. It sounds like he channeled Dylan in writing and performing his new protest elegy, Streets of Minneapolis. However, I wrote this in 30 minutes, though I won’t be performing it.

It starts out,

Through the winter’s ice and cold
Down Nicollet Avenue

A city aflame fought fire and ice
‘Neath an occupier’s boots
 [No, Bruce. There is no occupation. Ask Ukraine what an occupation is.]

King Trump’s private army from the DHS
[No, Bruce. Trump is not a king. He has legal authority to dispatch federal law enforcement agents to apprehend illegals and violent criminals, all of whom have no right to live in this country.]

Guns belted to their coats
[And you brave revolutionaries would want them to come unarmed?]
Came to Minneapolis to enforce the law
 [True.]

Or so their story goes
 [Bruce, what other story is there? At this point I’m hoping your little ditty will rhyme out Trump's secret motivation.]
Against smoke and rubber bullets
[Yes, you would have wanted them to use real bullets as in Iran?]
By the dawn’s early light
[By my viewing, I saw no media reports of people protesting at dawn.
 But I’ll give you some paid protestors probably were putting in for overtime pay.]

Citizens stood for justice
[Justice or radical lefties fighting the feds for gullible voters? A political claim.]

Their voices ringing through the night
[No. There were not any voices “ringing,” but whistles and pots and pans banging.]

And there were bloody footprints
[Actually, there were no “bloody footprints” anywhere.]

Where mercy should have stood
[The first death was an attempted run-down, the second was from an armed intruder
 into an official ICE operation. In the second instance, we don’t know essential facts, yet.
 (But Democrat “victims” are hardly ever how they are touted.)

And two dead left to die on snow-filled streets
[Very dramatic. Nobody was “left to die.” Both died instantly by assaulting  with vehicle and obvious violent intent against law enforcement officials.]

Alex Pretti and Renee Good
[Accurate.]

Wait. I can’t stop. There’s so much more…

Oh our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Singing through the bloody mist
 [Yeah, Bruce. Those fascist machine guns mowed your people down…]

We’ll take our stand for this land
And the stranger in our midst
[Sounds damn poetic. But all 20 million strangers your Biden let in so his party could retain raw power? Don’t think so.]

Here in our home they killed and roamed
In the winter of ’26
[So actually which victims are you singing about? The victims of illegal aliens whom, again, Joe Biden turned loose on the American people? The numbers of victims illegal aliens dwarf any accidental killings of questionable "demonstrators."]

We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis
[What about remembering the names of all the Americans who died at the hands of illegal border crossers, the hundreds of thousands of trafficked children, raped women and drug victims all made possible by neuro-degenerate Joe Biden with the help of the cartels?]

You get my point.

You can take apart every line of this plaintive performance. Artists can say what they want, but some people expect a legitimate basis for their art instead of left wing propaganda.

Yes, you can sing along, wave your lighter in the air as you hypnotically sway back and forth if you want, but remember clever people, especially communists, love to get you emotionally committed and do stupid things. That’s how they’ve always gotten idiot followers to do their dirty work.

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The CA Throws Shade on Trump’s Safe Task Force Memphis Stats

(1.26.26) Memphis in particular has been cited as a success story by the Trump administration of his Safe Task Force program to arrest or deport violent illegal aliens, gang members and assorted criminals loose in our cities. Our city came up again in a press conference following the shooting death by a Border Patrol agent of an armed activist in the current Minneapolis anti-ice riots that have taken over certain parts of the streets there.

Commercial Appeal today cast shade on the purported reduction of violent crime in Memphis as stated by the Trump Memphis Safe Task force. The CA's objection: the crime stats don't jive with those of the city. The story--and how the city counts its crimes compared to the task force--would make a good in-depth story to see if the city is reducing crime so it can be put in a better light. We've talked about this before, but apparently the city counts a crime scene regardless of victims as one crime while the feds count individual victims. We would appreciate a clarification from the MPD.

However, while it is well known the Commercial Appeal is opposed to Trump, we find it therefore predictable the CA would be less than supportive of any effort to reduce crime in Memphis that has been called the “murder capital of the country”--lest Trump would seem at least objectively acceptable to Memphians.

If the CA were to actually cover Trump in more stories even in the context of its own politically Democratic stance, the paper would have more legitimacy regarding any story about him. Maybe the next story will be: do Memphis politics ignore the price of crime from personal property to murder while not revealing crime stats of individual victims? Here’s the CA story.

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Really, Commercial Appeal? Isn’t it time to rethink Trump?

A Commercial Appeal Commentary Review by BenQQ

(1.24.26) In a market where few people are Trump supporters or even objective observers, a local musician gets a long editorial in the Commercial Appeal, the big daily in Memphis, to call for Trump’s ouster. Zach Bair seems to be upset over the, well, unexpected outcomes of Trump’s work, like “drama and chaos.” I think of it like Christmas morning every time I wake up. So we obviously have differing political starting points with different appreciation of Trump’s policies.

First thing, he links to an article in NPR (and PBS) broadcasters who assuredly hated Trump for defunding their biased reporting, as evidence Trump is withholding data within the Epstein files, a folly now discredited–especially since everyone knows Trump and Epstein had a serious falling out after he apparently hit on at least one of his employees at Mar-a-Lago. Further, the “Epstein files” are not one single thing—and much, if not all (who knows?) of what it really is is tied up in courts, privacy law and institutional self-protection. Further, a lot of those files are tied up in grand juries and victim protection laws.  At any rate, the Epstein files, regardless the Epstein Transparency Act, releasing those files in bulk, would ruin innocent reputations and lives. But few Dem liberals–or apparently their media–take that seriously.

He jumps from Epstein to (our currently favorite “narco terrorist” per Trump) Nicolas Maduro, as if the two have close weight. The first, irrelevant. The second, guilty as hell in the importation of drugs that has killed thousands of Americans. But that’s not all. Maduro, who unfortunately had a penchant for mocking Trump in a cringey dance that his subordinates thought was oh so funny, was captured ever so elegantly by American operatives, thus sending a message to dictators everywhere, no matter how many you kill, you–(and your ol’ lady)–will not get away with it.

In so doing, he reclaimed South America from incursions of Russia, and especially China, in the “Donroe Doctrone” (Monroe Doctrine). Compare that to the previous insouciant president who claimed the latter was just a “competitor.” There are plenty of both solid and dotted lines of corruption from the Biden family to China and Russia. And yes, Hunter flew with dad on Air Force One to China. (And yes, Dad pardoned Hunter of all crimes he committed, may have committed, was ever charged with or could have been charged with.) Nice.

One problem that Zach has is he does not know how to read Trump. But he’s not alone. Almost all Dems and some Repubs still are left in a confangled mental mess after listening to Trump: he’s going to invade Greenland, occupy Venezuela, rebuild Gaza into a tourist resort and more. They haven’t learned Trump starts from a position of strength and even fear, just like many other successful CEOs. (Remember, Trump comes from New York real estate and beat out the meanest tycoons therein.) You want your president to have that as a characteristic asset, not a quiet self hating putz like the previous president.

No, he would never invade Greenland. You want him to take Greenland by agreement and, again, keep China and Russia out of that strategic location to shorten the flight of their missiles into the U.S. and secure the Arctic as well.

Next on the menu, indeed: Iran, Cuba. By the way, We’ll get to those later. However, I am not one completely satisfied with Trump’s behavior via foreign policy. Even thou my interpretation of his aforementioned CEO principles never fail (the US is the company, everybody else is either a client or an enemy poaching on the market), I was appalled at Trump’s attitude toward Ukraine, as well as his relative quiet re Taiwan.

Let me unload on Trump even further here: His problem with Ukraine is the whole thing is like a bad weather issue. Both sides are losing people. It’s all the same. No, Mr. President, Ukraine is fighting for its freedom and independence against a barbarous enemy. It is not the same. Quit acting like it is. They want to be western, to be friends, to trade with us. So, still once again, he has decided to come down on the side of Ukraine with new armaments. The Russians are now, by many reports, under extreme pressure to find an end to their blood thirsty typical aggression. Trump’s weakness, in my opinion, is obvious: he can be flattered into the deal but seems to see his error at the last minute. But maybe that’s really at not the last minute…or an error.

Then Zach expresses sympathy for Renee Good, the woman who apparently attempted to run down an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer. For that, the officer fired back, killing her instantly. The only person I have sympathy for in that case is her 6 year old daughter who was expecting mommy to return home as she always did. But thanks to the irresponsible rhetoric of the likes of now disgraced Gov. Tim Walz who lost billions due to his ignoring hundreds of whistle blowers of Somali corruption, mommy won’t be coming home. I blame mommy, not the ICE officer who protected himself and others.

The ICE journalistic malpractice media pandemic per legacy media is a natural hotbed of graphic reporting: See ICE hold a small child hostage, See ICE shoot a “demonstrator.” See ICE drag a woman from her car. See how ICE “looks” like Nazis. All only a small part of stories that don’t include the whole.

Zach ends his piece by claiming Trump has “weaponized” the federal government using a private “police” (his quotes) “that has zero constitutional authority over U.S. civilians…” For this argument, he links to the Associated Press which seems to think a state that has refused local police support to ICE during the current mob takeover of public street, should then conduct the lead investigation of a federal officer? I’m not a lawyer, but I would aver that outcome as much as possible, especially considering the Mayor of Minneapolis Jacob Frey chose political rabble rousing over thoughtful leadership with: “To ICE, get the f* out of Minneapolis.”

In conclusion, Bair claims Trump is “weaponizing” government and even has sympathy for former FBI Director Comey and New York Attorney General “Big Tish” Leticia James, both down the line corrupt and insanely anti-Trump for power and political reasons, “respectively.”

Trump kept Comey on as FBI head but fired him in May 2017, rightfully suspecting disloyalty. During his time as Trump’s FBI Director, Comey has said he visited Trump’s office, wrote down detailed notes and gave them to a friend to give to the media–very much a serious violation of FBI policy but DOJ of course declined to prosecute. Comey’s leak led directly to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s multi-million dollar witch hunt investigation.

But let’s remember before Trump was even president, Comey launched Crossfire Hurricane in the first mammath major government weaponization against Trump, an elected president of the U.S.

“Crossfire Hurricane” was  the FBI’s investigation into whether Trump’s 2016 campaign coordinated with Russia, which later conjoined with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s multi-million dollar investigation. No Trump associates were ever convicted for conspiring with Russia.

By the way, our own Dem Rep. Steve Cohen spent the virtual entirety of Trump’s first term running around claiming Trump was a number of things: crook, racist, fraudster among others. I wrote about that extensively and have published one interview he did with a local TV station where he ran unchallenged with all of his wild accusations.

Comey also went after Trump associates Michael Flynn, Carter Page, Paul Manafort,  George Papadopoulos. Further, Comey had enabled the continued investigations of Trump allies Roger Stone, and even Jared Kushner and Donald Trump, Jr. Of the above, two were convicted of lying and one financial crimes

Letitia James mounted spurious charges that were eventually dismissed, as have been an assortment of state and federal charges all emanating from the deep state.

Never has there been such a coordinated conspiracy of weaponization that included electoral fraud and widespread lawfare against a popularly elected president. The Democrats had finally learned Stalin's method: 'show me the man and I will show you the crime.'

However, Trump has come out on top every time with a row of historic successes in his second term to boot. Apparently, the Commercial Appeal will not report on that.

Here's Zach Bair's piece. LInk.

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"WHY ARE Y'LL DOING THIS TO ME?"
Good question. The Story Didn't Answer that.
a media review by BenQQ

Channel 24 set the story up like this: “'Why are y'all doing this to me?': Memphis restaurant owner reflects on viral video showing law enforcement standoff.”

Here’s what the story is about:  For some still unknown reason, Memphis police, the Memphis Safe Task Force and national guardsmen showed up at a local sandwich shop in black neighborhood last night. There were no reported arrests. The owner of the shop verbally confronted the officers and rhetorically demanded to know, “Why are y’all doing this to me?” It was too good to pass up, 24 slapped his plaintive wail up in big fat letters as a dramatic title.  

In a somewhat confusing story where there were two incidents in different parts of town: one in a East Memphis restaurant where there was gunfire and at another restaurant in Orange Mound, a high crime area, where there was no gunfire. Incidents involving ICE occurred at both restaurants at about the same time, according to 24. Otherwise, there is apparently no reported connection between the two.

However, visual clues in their own story raises more questions that went unanswered. Had they been, it could explain at least in part why there was a congregation of the three partnering agencies at that location.

For example, Channel 24’s video started with a closeup of an official looking pre-printed professional sign on the door of the business that read “NO ICE ACCESS IN THIS BUSINESS.” Pre-printed signage can be an indication of outside organizational involvement. It’s not hard to print this kind of signage on your computer.

I was hoping to see the reporter get the owner in front of a camera and ask at least a couple of these questions:
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--Did he make the sign on his door or did someone else make it?
--If the latter, then who made it?
--How long had he opined about ICE in the way reflected on his door sign?
--What were his reasons for opposing ICE?
--What does he think about President Trump?
--Did he or someone else make his anti-ICE sign?
--Finally, had he lost business as a result of ICE presence previously?

But it is obvious the reporter did not want an objective piece. Just reinforce black owner-as-victim for easy consumption by mostly black viewers. To top it off, the reporter dragged in a “local activist” to spout off about how unfair it all was.

I can’t help it. By this time I’m shouting at my television which is beginning to take it personally.
Ask him:

--Did he create that door sign?
--Had he met or spoken with the owner to work this story?
--Was he employed to be an activist or does he get any payment to work political issues?
--Sure, we know you’re an activist, but what other issue have you acted upon?

The police, guard and ICE are not completely off the hook here, either. The story was legitimate. Whenever a bunch of law enforcement officers show up at a small business like this, people deserve answers. According to the reporter, she asked and they provided nothing–not even a standard operation statement.

Finally, I’m not speaking for any of the agencies here, but if I were police/guard/ICE headed to that: 1) location in a high crime area, 2) where people hear plenty of anti-Trump propaganda and biased media, 3) knew the owner was anti-ICE, 4) was dramatically refusing service to ICE officers, 5) while a state governor and mayor called ICE repressive, I would not want to show up without force. That’s just me. Call me evil.

Here’s Channel 24’s story. What do you think?

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Anti-ICE Mob Attacks Church Services, Possibly Breaking Federal Law. Don Lemon reportedly videos for his podcast.

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Updates
1.20.25 Democrat Minnesota Attorney General said it was OK for a mob to storm into a church and demonstrate. However, the Face Act makes it a federal crime, to "injure, intimidate, or interfere" with a person lawfully trying to exercise the First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship. The act also protects persons seeking reproductive health services. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon threatened liberal podcaster Don Lemon with charges under the Ku Klux Klan Act during a television appearance Monday. An egregious example of a "journalist" fomenting, if not manufacturing, news is Lemon's aggressive impromptu interview of church officials as the organization he obviously supports disrupted church services. Lemon touted his first amendment rights which apparently included storming church services. Lemon had Democratic MN Attorney General Keith Ellison on his podcast who retouted Lemon's belief that the incursion into the church was protected by first amendment rights. Democratic Gov. Tim Walz has not condemned the church attack. Opinion: Apparently, Democrats love their people attacking a church--just like Hitler's goons did to synagogues--but can't stand it when their Dem. goons who attack ICE officials are arrested.

(1.19.26) An anti-ICE mob in Minneapolis stormed into regular church services yesterday to protest ICE actions.  The disruptors accused the pastor of secretly leading federal immigration enforcement in the state. The mob cited no law that would make that illegal. However, 18 U.S. Code 247 makes it illegal to obstruct the free exercise of religious beliefs.

At the church disruption, the New York Post reported the mob yelled “ICE out” and “Justice for Renee Good.” Good is the woman who was shot and killed by an ICE officer after she apparently tried to run over him with her car, according to video. No charges have been filed against the ICE officer who fired the fatal shot. Reportedly, another anti-ICE attacker hit the same officer about six months ago, causing injuries. The feds say this time the officer suffered internal bleeding and was released from the hospital the same day.

At the disruption, former CNN host Don Lemon was reportedly filming the event for his podcast. His presence caused one person to say he was reminded of CNN on location at the home of Peter Navarro, a White House aide to former President Trump, at Navarro’s early morning arrest by Biden officials.

The sanctuary city mayor mocked the injury. He reportedly said the injured agent "walked away with a hip injury that he might as well have gotten from closing a refrigerator door with his hips. Give me a break. No, he was not ran over. He walked out of there with a hop in his step."

A Jan. 14 ICE news release said, “The criminal illegal aliens–members of criminal gangs like MS-13, Paisas, Oriental Boys, MS-13 and more–have extensive rap sheets that include homicide, sexual assault and weapons crimes.”

Frey has lead the city in active resistance to federal actions relating to ICE law enforcement apprehensions.

Trump reportedly says “We’re coming!” to freedom fighters in Iran.

Tousi.tv is reporting Trump is on his way to help the protestors finally put an end to the repressive regime that is now killing thousands in the streets, according to observers. If Trump attacks the Iranian military structure and drives Ayatollah Ali Khamenei out of the country, if not outright killing him, via special U.S. forces, the massive population of disaffected Iranian young people will break out into a new future hopefully free of Islamic theocracy, according to activists. Moreover, Iran itself could build a foothold friendly to the west in the heart of Muslim country.

Barack Obama, in response to a Hague legal judgment, flew in $400 million in cash on pallets in the dead of night ostensibly as part of the long standing financial dispute stemming from the 1979 Iranian revolution in which 66 Americans were illegally held for 444 days under harsh conditions. They were never compensated by Iran. Shortly thereafter, Obama paid an additional $1.3 billion in interest to Iran. Obama had hoped such a payment would make Iran less antagonistic toward the west. It didn’t work.  

Even with an international court order, it is hard to believe Trump would make any payment under the circumstances. Trump has threatened to drop the hammer once and for all on the current theocratic dictator Khamenei. Commentators are saying dictatorships are learning Trump, unlike Obama and Biden in particular, has a limit on this president’s patience.

However, the problem, say Democratic critics, Trump’s actions are really not in American interests. For example, Kamala Harris, the vice presidential running mate to now Missouri Gov. Tim Walz, currently embattled over the Somalian multi-billion dollar scandal that is said to reach deep into state offices, maybe even Walz’s, announced Trump’s snatching Nicolas Maduro, a known narco oil terrorist out of Venezuela to face American justice, is illegal.

In Africa in June, Trump went after the Islamic terrorist group Boku Horam for mass execution of Christians and in December he dropped penetration ordinance down the chutes of an Iranian nuclear construction site.

Apparently, Trump knows how and when to be the world’s policeman, especially when it comes to American interests.

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Trump Defends Christians on Christmas Day

(12.26.25) After Post-1960 Nigerian independence, ethnic and religious divides fueled violence, including 1953 Kano clashes, 1966 pogroms, Sharia implementation in the 2000s, and Boko Haram/ISIS attacks targeting Christians, causing mass deaths amid poverty and governance issues.

Therefore, Trump has recognized the need to defend Nigerian Christians after criticizing the government's inaction against jihadist violence, designating Nigeria a "Country of Particular Concern" in November 2025.

Influenced by religious freedom advocates and intelligence on ISWAP (Islamic State – West Africa Province) atrocities, he ordered targeted Christmas Day strikes as a bold message to protect persecuted minorities, aligning with his pro-Christian foreign policy.

Critics claim Trump's actions create risks to civilians, sovereignty breaches, and ignore root causes. Trump countered that the strikes were precise, Nigerian-approved operations eliminating terrorists who perpetrate genocide-like attacks on Christians. He argued delays enable more deaths, framing the action as essential humanitarian defense that prioritizes security over endless diplomacy.

Trump's Nigeria success may inspire defenses of Christians elsewhere, per his religious freedom orders. Likely targets include ISIS remnants in Syria/Iraq, church crackdowns in China/North Korea, or insurgencies in Mozambique/Sahel, contingent on intel, partnerships, and balanced military-diplomatic strategies to avoid overreach.

Official government photographs of the bombing itself have not been released publicly to maintain operational security. However, here are links to official statements and related official images/graphics from U.S. government sources:

• U.S. Africa Command Press Release on the Strike: https://www.africom.mil/pressrelease/36158/us-africa-command-conducts-strike-against-isis-in-nigeria
• White House X Post with Official Graphic of President Trump's Statement: https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/2004347074595234163 (includes image: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/G9DedVLXAAAdVUD.jpg)
• AFRICOM Media Room (for potential gallery updates): https://www.africom.mil/media-room

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Attacks Raise Renewed Alarms Surrounding Illegal Immigration

Recent mass killings and attacks raise questions regarding the ultimate outcome of allowing unassimilated populations to settle in western democracies.

An April 2025 page in the DHS site reported: "In Fiscal Year 2024, the Biden Administration made just 113,000 administrative arrests. From January 20 to April 1 of 2021, the last administration released over 184,000 illegal aliens into the country." Democratic policies allowed, even actively encouraged, illegal immigrants to cross the border unvetted. Homeland Security reports on their website that the agency had 11 million "border encounters" under the Biden administration. However, there is no accurate number as to how many illegal aliens got into the country under Biden.

Now people are thinking about the actual harm Biden did to the country with his open border policies. Internationally, unfettered open borders to illegal aliens unwilling to adopt cultural standards of their adopted country abound. Not so oddly, they are flocking to western countries with constitutionally guaranteed freedoms.

Muslims attacked Jews Dec. 14 killing 15 to 16 people of various ages and wounding 40+ others in a Sidney Hanukkah event. Austrian authorities classified the attack as terrorist with an anti-Semitic motive. 2021 Australian Census shows about 604,000 people identify as Muslim.

The Brown University shooting, where 2 people were killed and 12 wounded, has not been confirmed as of yet as political or religiously motivated. Though commentators say it appears one of the victims was a young woman who may have been targeted because she ran a Republican campus organization.

In Savannah, Georgia, Dec 10, an unknown man threw acid on the face of a 46 year old woman walking in a park after attending a church Christmas program. Though no evidence indicates political or religious motivation, commentators bring up this is a method used against people in South Asia, Middle East and Africa. Rare in U.S., UK and Australia

Communities are far safer under Trump. Illegal crossings are down 99.99% according to the DHS site. This saves even blue cities like Memphis, budgets in providing services and police protection. Add to that generally, Trump's safety task force is driving illegal aliens from the city, thus increasing safety and saving tax payer money.

Local News Roundup-12.23.2025
Have news for us? Send news and event releases here.

Two Memphis River Parks Partnership employees were robbed at gunpoint early Monday while in their work truck downtown—the robber even creepily said he'd been "watching" them.

Do You Know Who Tina Peters Is? Why Did Trump Pardon Her? MAGA calls her a “political prisoner.”

(12.15.25) Tina Peters was a Mesa County, Colorado official responsible for administering local elections. She said she became concerned about voting machine results after the 2020 election about which she said she noticed irregularities and unexplained changes in the county’s election system records following a ‘trusted build,’ a software update required by the state.

Not that there weren’t plenty of ‘irregularities and unexplained changes’ during that election where Trump defied the massive smearing by legacy corporate media and local Democratic politicians such as the allegations of Russian collusion and an assortment of other forms of criminal crookedness coming from, for example, Democrat Rep. Steve Cohen of Memphis. None of his allegations ever played out but media loved it. Cohen today stays off the anti-Trump Democratic bandwagon.

Election fraud and the Democratic mania to ‘get Trump’ during his first administration motivated a few players in blue states to fight for electoral integrity. In the case of Tina Peters fighting for election integrity, the Democratic blowback was legally devastating.

Today she is behind bars in Colorado, held in solitary confinement reportedly for her own protection. According to her attorney John Case, medical care is slow to come for Peters, a Gold Star Mom in her 70’s who has a cough and is a survivor of lung cancer. She has no previous criminal history. To date, Colorado has refused to transfer Peters to another prison where she can receive medical care, according to her attorney speaking on Steve Bannon’s War Room show. Supporters say this is much like the cases of the Jan. 06 convictions who had been over-charged and over-sentenced on political considerations.

Trump granted a “full pardon” to Peters December 11, citing that she was working to check fraud in a federal election and therefore is eligible for presidential pardons. The state of Colorado contends Trump’s pardon does not apply because Peters was convicted under state law. Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution gives the president power to grant: “Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United State.”

Her case: according to Peters she believed that system and configuration files on integrity challenged Dominion voting machines changed after the trusted build in early 2021. She declared these changes made it impossible to tell if election records were being overwritten or altered. Therefore, as Mesa County Clerk and Recorder, the official in charge of overseeing elections, she allowed unauthorized access of a technician to copy sensitive data for possible use to support her stated purpose to preserve election system data before the mandated software update following the 2020 election.

Peters was indicted in March 2022 for crimes related to allowing unauthorized access to county equipment and records. Significantly, she was not indicted on altering votes. The case centered on security protocol violations and misuse of authority. That distinction—process violations vs outcome manipulation—is central to why her supporters argue the prosecution was politically motivated.

In March 2023 Peters had a misdemeanor conviction for not turning over an Ipad to government investigators over a recording of a court hearing. She was sentenced to four months home detention and a fine.

A hearing is scheduled on her case in January.

More:

Tina Peters

John Case on War Room

12.10.25 Here's what you should know.

U.S. Forces Seize Sanctioned Oil Tanker in Coordinated Maritime Operation

Boarding teams secure vessel off Venezuela as part of ongoing efforts to enforce international sanctions and disrupt unauthorized oil shipments.

U.S. forces conducted a coordinated maritime operation today to seize a sanctioned oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, according to federal officials. The action is part of an ongoing effort to enforce international sanctions and disrupt unauthorized oil shipments linked to restricted entities. Government-released footage shows helicopters approaching the vessel and boarding teams securing the ship in a controlled, orderly manner. Officials described the mission as a routine but significant enforcement step demonstrating the continued readiness of U.S. forces to carry out complex maritime security operations.

President Trump’s aggressive tariff strategy continues to fuel key parts of the U.S. economy and middle-class livelihoods.

Proponents argue that the renewed focus on trade renegotiations and targeted tariffs has helped revive sectors weakened in previous years by incentivizing domestic production and reshoring supply chains. By pressuring foreign competitors and creating a more favorable environment for U.S. manufacturers, these policies are credited with stimulating investment, boosting output, and helping drive a broader economic rebound following the disruptions and inflationary pressures of the Biden era.

Yes, some recent small-business confidence indexes show a sharp drop as owners cite rising costs tied to tariffs and inflation, with many raising prices or struggling to stay profitable. Additionally, U.S. farmers — a substantial slice of the middle class in rural areas — have voiced that a newly announced $12 billion aid package falls well short of covering losses from trade disruptions and export challenges, especially with China, illustrating how tariff fallout is reverberating through agriculture. Critics argue these trade policies are increasing everyday expenses on goods and squeezing job growth in manufacturing and retail sectors, pushing living costs higher for average Americans.

The President, whom we have styled as America's modern CEO, has only been at work for less than a year. We say: keep the Democrats at bay so American can grow and heal from the disastrous Biden era.

Healthcare and tax/social policy debates affecting family budgets

On the legislative front, Trump has backed new measures aimed at providing direct payments (e.g., $1,000–$1,500 health-care checks) for certain Americans enrolled in high-deductible health plans, an attempt to ease healthcare costs for middle-income households. However, broader changes like proposals to scrap the Biden-era SAVE student-loan repayment plan could increase financial burdens on borrowers — many of whom are middle-class adults struggling with debt. Meanwhile, moves to weaken vehicle fuel-economy standards are controversial: the administration suggests this will lower car prices, but analysts dispute this, warning that lifetime fuel costs could rise. These policy shifts reflect mixed signals on affordability and cost-of-living relief for middle-income families. New York Post+2The Guardian+2

Our assessment at this time: anything is better than the Obama giveaway to the insurance companies. Trump is dealing with affordability. We think Biden never did.

Healthcare and tax/social policy debates affecting family budgets

Amid persistent inflation and everyday price increases, Trump has publicly defended his economic record. And he'd better: his policies have only been in effect for less than a year and already we see lower gasoline prices and a backoff from Biden era inflation. At recent rallies, he’s acknowledged that consumer prices are “too high.” He's working on it, thought polling and reports indicate dissatisfaction among middle-class voters who feel affordability hasn’t improved as promised--despite falling taxes and inflation.

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