Holly Mccall, Tennessee Lookout

Two Middle Tennesseans will be featured on billboards erected near Milwaukee’s Fiserv Arena, site of the 2024 Republican National Convention, as part of an advertising campaign organized by Republican Voters Against Trump. The campaign includes 15 billboards and a 60-second ad running in four battleground states.

Scott Moore, a 63-year-old from Nashville, is one of the featured Tennesseans. An Army veteran, Moore said he was a Republican voter from the time he registered to vote at 18 — he voted for former President Donald Trump in 2016 — and that the choice to connect with the group was difficult.

“I always thought a businessman could shake up the good ole boy system. I wasn’t thrilled about him but I thought he was a successful businessman,” said Moore of his 2016 vote. Later, “I saw that what he was doing was about him and not about our country.” ...

State Republican officials said the event was one of, if not the largest events of its type to be held, yet none of the Tennessee’s three statewide elected officials — Gov. Bill Lee and U.S. Sens. Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty — attended the dinner. Blackburn and Hagerty endorsed Trump, who is also running to secure a third bite as the GOP presidential nominee, months ago, and all three lawmakers sent in videos rather than appearing in person.

DeSantis used the word ‘woke’ more than 20 times in his speech, in which he targeted President Joe Biden, the federal government, the U.S. military, the Walt Disney Co. —which he referred to as “a business in Central Florida” — and, without naming him, Trump.

“You cannot have an open border where millions and millions of foreign nationals can legally pour into this country. So on Day One, we will declare the border a national emergency,” said DeSantis. “We will marshal all available national resources, including the military to stop the invasion cold. Yes, we will actually build a border wall because I think that we need it. We will do something that no president has been willing to do: hold the Mexican drug cartels accountable.” ...

U.S. District Judge Thomas Parker ruled the Adult Entertainment Act (AEA) violates the separation-of-powers principle and chills speech protected through the First Amendment.

In March, Friends of George’s, a Memphis theater company that raises funds for LGBTQ groups through performances that include drag, challenged the law, which was originally set to take effect on April 1. Parker placed a stay on the law the day before it was set to be enacted while considering arguments.

In his Friday ruling, Parker wrote that while the state has an interest in protecting minors, the law is not geared to do that. “Instead, that (the legislature’s) predominant concerns involved the suppression of unpopular views of those who wish to impersonate a gender that is different from the one with which they were born.” ...

A new ad created by former national Republican strategists turned anti-Trump Republicans highlights the recent expulsions of two young, Black Tennessee lawmakers.

The ad titled “Bullies,” and produced by The Lincoln Project, will run for two days, targeted for appearing on phones and computers located around the digital footprint of the Tennessee Capitol.

“The example we saw there is a perfect encapsulation of the rising abuse of power from GOP officials who understand their majorities are threatened by young voters,” Lincoln Project co-founder and longtime Republican strategist Rick Wilson told the Tennessee Lookout, “by changing demographics and by how repulsive voters find their actions in the past several years. ...

The Tennessee Supreme Court overturned a June 3 ruling by Davidson County Chancellor Russell Perkins, ending a bid by video producer Robby Starbuck to run for the Republican nomination to Congress in the state’s 5th District.

On April 19, the Tennessee Republican Party Executive Committee voted to remove Starbuck, Donald Trump-backed Morgan Ortagus and businessman Baxter Lee from the GOP ballot, after all three had their partisan credentials challenged.

“The state party is trying to go beyond the scope of what they’re allowed to do by kicking a bonafide Republican like me off the ballot,” Starbuck said in a press release at the time....