Watch Rep. Mark Green use the memory of fallen soldiers to try to delay Rep. Underwood’s bill which would provide Electronic Medical Records at the border – as requested by border officials – to keep immigrant kids from dying in our care, which is happening for the first time in a decade.
A heated Leader Steny Hoyer points out Green’s MTR “does nothing for veterans”, and would simply be a delay tactic.
“Absolutely it was racist… you want folks to stay ignorant so they won’t hold you accountable. It was not a joke.”
Cherisse Scott of SisterReach fires back at Sen. Kerry Roberts, who called for an end to higher ed after her #TNAbortionBan testimony.
She also said:
“You’ve been able to effectively train your people to believe I don’t care about myself, my baby, my community, and as long as you can keep that going there will never be an opportunity for white Tennesseans to believe they have something in common with black Tennesseans.”
Watch the CLIP below, and the FULL Facebook Live INTERVIEW HERE.
The AUDIO is also available on our podcast – subscribe on Itunes HERE.
And below you can watch Cherisse read the full testimony she tried to give during the #TNAbortionBan Senate committee hearings before Senator Mike Bell cut her off. He let a man who said he “remembers being born” go on much longer.
In response to passionate abortion ban hearing testimony from Cherisse Scott of Sister Reach – a pro-reproductive freedom witness who called Republican legislators to account for failing to expand medicaid, raise the wage to a living wage, support public education, and other public policies that should be supported by anyone who is truly “pro-life” – State Senator Kerry Roberts called for ending higher education in Tennessee on his radio show.
Presumably because that’s where Cherisse and others learn to support policy positions Roberts opposes. Yes, he lays abortion squarely at the feet of Tennessee’s colleges.
As a reminder, Cherisse was gaveled out and cut off by chairman Mike Bell, who allowed others to go much longer and finish their testimony, including anti-abortion advocate who says he “remembers being born”.
Watch and Share, and feel free to holler at Senator Roberts HERE.
At a town hall in Maury County yesterday a local man named Greg Heller, who asked Rep. Scott Cepicky and Senator Joey Hensley why the TN GOP continues to block medicaid expansion and let Tennesseans die unnecessarily when expanding medicaid would cost the state nothing, and we lose $1.4 Billion every single year we don’t do it.
Tennessee is at the bottom in health care access, opioid deaths, infant mortality rates, the list goes on… we’re #1 in rural hospital closures per capita and medical bankruptcies. Medicaid Expansion would help all of it, and cost us nothing.
Also, important to remember – Cepicky says they want to “proceed with caution” when it comes to federal dollars, but TENNESSEE IS ALREADY ONE OF THE MOST FEDERALLY DEPENDENT STATES at 36% of the state budget. Do he and the TN GOP want to give that money back?
HOLLER AT YOUR REPS and tell them Greg’s right – there’s no excuse. Expand Medicaid.
With Senator Marsha Blackburn helping to keep the money-spigot turned on for Big Pharma by making it harder for the DEA to fight the opioid crisis, a federal database recently found a pharmacy in Murfreesboro owned by state Sen. Shane Reeves sold 46 million pills over six years, distributing the most opioid pills in Tennessee BY FAR, with no close second.
Reeves initially said he wasn’t surprised, but now his company TwelveStone is demanding a recount, so it’s worth remembering that during his campaign Reeves came out durinn a Pharmacy Podcast Network interview and openly said he told his company partners that he’s running for office because being a state senator would be good for his company in two areas: “Public Policy and Networking”
Yes, Reeves comes right out and says the quiet part out loud – that from his position at state senator he’ll be able to help his own company, Twelvestone. Here’s the quote, and you can hear it for yourself in the video below:
“One [way TwelveStone will benefit is] obviously public policy, trying to drive and make a difference in the issues that are impacting pharmacy and healthcare so much in business. The second thing is business development growth and networking. Clearly as a state senator I’m going to meet a lot of people which can help for the company — anytime someone looks up Shane Reeves, they’re going to see TwelveStone.”
Again- Reeves is literally reassuring his own partners that by running for state senate he can influence the regulations that govern his industry and promote the company through his position.
And he has been doing it.
The list of bills Reeves has sponsored includes a number of bills related to the pharmacy industry in which he works.
As TwelveStone shovels pills out by the millions, Tennessee is one of the few states in which opioid death tolls are still going up even as states around us see theirs going down. We’re also far behind the overall trend of dropping opioid addiction numbers, which studies show is very clearly tied to our unwillingness to expand Medicaid – which Reeves does not support.
Importantly, he is also one of the voices against Tennessee passing a law legalizing medical marijuana, which would allow Tennesseans to deal with their pain in a manner other than with the pills his company makes a killing off of.
During his run for the senate against Gayle Jordan, who did support Medical Marijuana, Reeves had this to say on the topic:
“There absolutely are benefits to cannabis, medical marijuana, for people who’ve got cancer, glaucoma, nerve pain and headaches. There are also other ways you can take it other than smoking it. There’s oils, capsules, and I think over the next years we should look at some other options… But right now my answer to medical marijuana is not now.”
Sorry Tennesseans suffering from cancer, glaucoma, nerve pain headaches – many of which are veterans, who overwhelmingly support medical marijuana – your pain relief will have to wait, because TwelveStone has money to make.
As the Tennessee Democratic Party said during Reeves’ campaign:
“Shane Reeves loaned his campaign more than $255,000 and raised at least half a million dollars for a job that pays $22,000. Now we know why: In his own words, getting elected would help boost his name recognition and help his pharmaceutical company TwelveStone succeed.”
If you agree Reeves running for state senator to help his own company while helping to block things like Medicaid expansion and Medical Marijuana, which would actually help people, is not a good thing, holler at Senator Reeves HERE.
At the abortion ban hearings last week, Cherisse Scott of Sister Reach stepped up and said what needed to be said, excoriating TN Senate members for “weaponizing the word of God to forward their political agendas”.
Needless to say, they didn’t take Kindly to it. Although MANY of the witnesses were off topic and went over their time, Cherisse was the ONLY witness Bell cut off – and he did it after just 5 minutes.
He let Hal Rounds, a tea partier who said he “remembers being born”, go twice as long.
Here’s video of the moments leading up to her mic being cut, and after:
Speaking to supporters, Senator Mark Pody – sponsor of the Tennessee abortion ban bill – says his goal is to “destroy Satan”.
The TN GOP openly says it hopes to take it to the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v Wade with the bill, which is clearly rooted in religious ideals.
We’ll have a video with highlights from the summer study hearings coming soon.
Our LIVE INTERVIEW with Francie Hunt of Tennessee Advocates for Planned Parenthood & Anna Carella of Healthy and Free Tennessee!
Talking about women’s reproductive rights, abortion bans and more.
TN GOP congressman John Rose for Tennessee says if we make health care a right we’ll turn into Venezuela or Cuba… Doesn’t explain how all other developed nations with universal health care have avoided that fate.
He says universal health coverage would make us “not free” — Sorry Canada, France, England, etc.. y’all aren’t “free” according to Rep. John Rose!
LINK: http://herald-citizen.com/stories/rose-hospital-admins-talk-health-care,36359
Watch Governor Lee get confronted recently in Meigs County about not expanding Medicaid by Anna Grabowski, whose friend she says might be alive otherwise.
Tennessee leads the nation in medical bankruptcies and rural hospital closures, and has lost $7 Billion and counting as a result of this purely political decision.