Author

J. Holly McCall

J. Holly McCall

Holly McCall has been a fixture in Tennessee media and politics for decades. She covered city hall for papers in Columbus, Ohio and Joplin, Missouri before returning to Tennessee with the Nashville Business Journal. Holly brings a deep wealth of knowledge about Tennessee’s political processes and players and likes nothing better than getting into the weeds of how political deals are made.

COMMENTARY
Franklin High School (Photo: Williamson County Schools)

Editor’s Column: In Williamson County’s underbelly, everything old is new again

By: - August 25, 2021

Recently, a recording of a Williamson County School Board meeting went viral after anti-mask parents mobbed physicians after the meeting, screaming at the doctors and threatening them.  National news outlets, including CNN, The Washington Post, the New York Times and Esquire, covered the disgraceful incident and many locals shared their feelings of distress on social […]

COMMENTARY
(Photo: Getty Images)

Editor’s Column: COVID comes home

By: - August 13, 2021

My husband is a bull of a man.  He’s rarely sick and I’ve never known anything to scare him. He joined the Chicago Carpenters Union at 18, swinging a hammer for years before working his way up to superintendent. When a nail went through his work boot into his foot, he pulled it out and […]

COMMENTARY
Gov. Bill Lee at Ag Day on the Hill, March 12, 2019. (Photo: Theresa Montgomery/State of Tennessee)

Editor’s Column: Welcome to Absurdistan!

By: - August 7, 2021

Christopher Buckley is known for writing novels of absurdist political fiction, with titles like “No Way to Treat a First Lady,” in which the First Lady is accused of killing her husband, the president, and “Thank You for Smoking,” which was turned into a 2005 film.  Buckley’s 2007 book “Boomsday,” revolves around a public relations […]

COMMENTARY
Odessa Kelly works on the porch of her East Nashville. (Photo: John Partipilo)

Editor’s column: The hottest ticket in town

By: - July 23, 2021

Political tongues have been flapping all over Nashville since community organizer and activist Odessa Kelly announced her candidacy for the Democratic nomination in the 5th Congressional District in early April.  Kelly is taking on incumbent Jim Cooper, who has served in the 5th District seat since his election in 2002 (and in the 4th Congressional […]

COMMENTARY
Dr. Michelle Fiscus (Photo: John Partipilo)

Commentary: The curious case of Dr. Fiscus

By: - July 16, 2021

We began the week in the soap opera that is Tennessee with the firing of the Tennessee Department of Health’s chief immunization director.  Dr. Michelle “Shelley” Fiscus, a pediatrician by training, was unceremoniously sacked on Monday after four years of service with the state. Fiscus said her termination letter gave no reason for her firing […]

Historic Nashville Courthouse. (Photo: John Partipilo)

Save Nashville Now sues Davidson County Election Commission

By: - July 13, 2021

The other shoe has dropped in the ongoing dispute over a proposed referendum in Nashville to change the Metro Government Charter and undo a property tax increase levied by Metro Council in 2020.  Save Nashville Now, a coalition of city business, community and faith leaders has filed a lawsuit against the Davidson County Election Commission, […]

COMMENTARY
WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 18: The U.S Capitol Building is prepared for the inaugural ceremonies for President-elect Joe Biden as American flags are placed in the ground on the National Mall on January 18, 2021 in Washington, DC. The approximately 191,500 U.S. flags will cover part of the National Mall and will represent the American people who are unable to travel to Washington, DC for the inauguration. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Commentary: Recapture the flag

By: - July 4, 2021

When I was a kid, the American flag was a big deal in our house.  We had a heavy cloth flag that, unlike flags now, wasn’t just a design printed on flimsy fabric. The red and white stripes were sewn together and the stars individually stitched onto the blue background.  When it wasn’t hanging from […]

COMMENTARY
(Getty Images)

Editor’s column: America has too little education on race, not too much

By: - June 25, 2021

When I got out of college in 1987, I realized I was an educated idiot.  For the past five years, I’d crammed my head with a lot of facts and knew about the politics of Latin America and the Soviet Union, political theory going back to Plato and Aristotle, the plays of Shakespeare and bawdy […]

From left, MarVelous Brown, Larry Jenkins and Marcus Chandler with the band "Brassville." (Photo: John Partipilo)

Tennesseans celebrate Juneteenth

By: , and - June 21, 2021

Tennesseans didn’t wait on President Joe Biden’s Thursday proclamation making Juneteenth a federal holiday to begin organizing celebrations marking the occasion. In the Nashville area alone, more than 45 events were held to celebrate a traditional holiday for Black Americans. On June 19,1865, U.S. Major Gen. Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston Texas bearing a copy […]

COMMENTARY
NASHVILLE, Tenn., Nov. 7, 2020 -A supporter of Donald Trump yells at a Black Lives Matter supporter during a "Stop the Steal" rally, the same day President-elect Joe Biden clinched his win. (Photo: Ray Di Pietro)

Editor’s column: Refute the big lie

By: - June 15, 2021

Almost five months ago, Joe Biden was inaugurated President of the United States, an event that came after months of lawsuits filed by former President Donald Trump’s campaign team, outright lies and a disgraceful and violent insurrection against Congress the very day that body was certifying the results of the federal election.  That was bad […]

COMMENTARY
Protestors hold a banner saying, "No Nazis in Nashville" outside hatWRKS in Nashville during a Saturday protest. (Photo: John Partipilo)

Commentary: In comparing COVID-19 vaccines to the Holocaust, the idiots have outdone themselves

By: - May 31, 2021

It should go without saying that one should never trivialize the Holocaust. The Holocaust, after all, was the systemic —and damn near successful—effort to wipe out the Jewish people by Adolph Hitler’s Nazi government. Six million Jews were marginalized, herded into ghettos, tortured and murdered—some by firing squads until Nazi officers realized that was too […]

COMMENTARY
Gov. Bill Lee at a plant dedication Humboldt, Tennessee in March, pictured with plant workers. (Photo: John Partipilo)

Editor’s column: Lee is either ignorant or dishonest in migrant children situation

By: - May 28, 2021

In this week’s manufactured crisis, I give you the situation of unaccompanied migrant children being transported to shelter in Chattanooga.  To hear Tennessee’s Republican leaders, the kids were snuck into our fair state in the dead of night, with no consultation with local leaders and against explicit warnings to the Biden administration that we don’t […]