By James Smallwood, Guest Columnist

This year Nashvillians will head to the polls to consider Amendment One.

At face value, without any research, a civilian oversight board sounds like a good concept. However, a closer scrutiny of the details, i.e., the massive budget, lack of equal representation, absence of regulations on those who would be appointed to the board (directly by politicians) reveals genuine concerns that this board would be rife with corruption, overspending, and an anti-police agenda.

For starters, Nashville’s budget is a mess. Despite a strong economy and record low unemployment, Nashville has defaulted on promised pay raises to Metro employees and cut millions of dollars out of the budget from nearly every department.

Police, fire, libraries and schools are all experiencing serious budget cuts. This, coupled with an increasingly crushing debt service, makes it obvious that the last thing we need is a redundant government board which, as proposed, would cost Nashville taxpayers $10 million over the next several years; we simply cannot afford it.

For example, police still do not have body cameras. These devices would provide the desired transparency on police interactions with the public.

Nashville needs millions of dollars to pay for this program. However, the massive cost of Amendment One would make it far more difficult to afford and maintain this program. 

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Chants of ‘We love Trump, U-S-A!’ echoed across the East Room of the White House before, during, and after President Donald Trump’s address to hundreds of young black conservatives.

The President’s address was part of the Young Black Leaders Summit (YBLS), a four-day conference focused on millennial-aged, conservative black Americans. The student-activist group, Turning Point USA, is hosting the event.

Brandon Tatum is Director of Urban Engagement at Turning Point USA, and he told Fox News that the YBLS is symbolic for black voters. “YBLS is important because it gives an example to this country that black voters are not monoliths and think for ourselves,” said Tatum.

Turning Point’s Communications Director Candace Owens told Fox News that the YBLS is working to change the narrative when it comes to President Trump and the Democratic Party for black Americans.

“Despite all of the lies and propaganda, black Americans are waking up,” said Owens. “Black Americans are realizing that this person you’ve painted as a monster seems to be bringing results that you’ve promised for decades and never delivered.”

President Trump touted historic gains for black Americans during his tenure in office which included a 5.9 percent unemployment rate for in May 2018. It’s the lowest black unemployment rate in recorded American history and also contributes to a closing gap between black and white unemployment.

“For decades policies advanced by Democrats have and eliminated opportunity and wiped out good paying jobs and even great paying jobs for the black community,” declared President Trump. “The results really speak for themselves, it was just announced last quarter that the economy beat all expectations, growing at 3%, 3.5%, and now they think it could be well into the fours.”

Attendees of the summit gathered outside of the White House following the President’s address, inspired to tell their own journey into conservatism.

“I don’t have a lot of people in my community who are like-minded as me, and I’m used to getting racial slurs thrown at me like a coon or Uncle Tom,” YBLS attendee Shawn Gamble told Fox News. “I wanted to come here to connect with other black conservatives.”

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Candace Owens announced her new project BLEXIT, ‘the black exit from the Democrat Party,’ vowing to take her mission of exodus to the very cities controlled by democratic politicians.

“Politicians have been lying to us, the media have been lying to us,” Owens began, in a room surrounded by hundreds of friends and supporters, “and for a long time, if we’re being honest, we’ve been lying to ourselves.”

The room was speckled with red “Make America Great Again” hats and colorful “BLEXIT” t-shirts, which Owens mentioned were designed by Kanye West. The rapper tweeted his support for Owens in April, shortly before vocally announcing his own support for President Donald Trump.

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So much is on the line this election cycle and predictions are plentiful. POLITICO has done an interesting analysis:

POLITICO analyzed every midterm race for the House, Senate and governor to determine who we think will win. We used historical trends, the latest polling data, evaluations of both parties' campaign strategies and extensive reporting in our analysis. Read about it here.

Every race is rated on a scale. Solid seats heavily favor a particular party. The party has a narrow edge in a Lean seat. Likely seats fall somewhere in between while Toss-ups are races we think are too close to call.