NEW PODCAST EPISODE: “Voices From The NASHVILLE Kurds Protest”
Kurds lost 11,000 lives in the fight against ISIS. Over 1500 people turned out to protest Trump’s betrayal of them in downtown Nashville on Friday.
Nashville has the largest population of Kurdish-Americans in the country. Listen to what they had to say:
“They’re killing all of my people right now.”
Watch our VIDEO here.
This op-ed by Holler co-founder Justin Kanew was originally seen in the Tennessean last week
Gov. Bill Lee’s possibly illegal Medicaid block grant proposal would put billions of dollars Tennessee’s most vulnerable citizens depend on in his hands and the hands of the Tennessee Republican supermajority with few strings attached. The plan gives them the incentive to spend as few of those dollars as possible by finding “savings” the state would then keep a portion of.
If “savings” sounds like “cuts” to you, you’d be correct. That’s why the block grant pushers have been unwilling to promise no cuts, and why comments about the proposal have been almost entirely negative. The American Pediatric Association, the American Lung Association, doctors, patients, mothers, lawyers, state legislators, members of Congress — in short, nearly everyone who has spoken at this week’s public hearings has been staunchly against what they see as a bad deal for Tennessee. It’s a deal that will hurt the people who need our help the most — seniors, children, the disabled and the poor.
The specifics of a block grant are vague and complicated, but the bottom line is that Lee and the state’s Republicans are asking us to trust that they’ll do a better job of stretching those Medicaid dollars without the federal rules and oversight that are designed to protect those at risk.
But Lee and the GOP have already shown us they are undeserving of our trust. Medicaid expansion would have been cost-free to Tennessee, yet former Republican Gov. Bill Haslam’s plan was blocked by his own party, and in the aftermath 12 hospitals have closed, 300,000 people have gone unnecessarily uninsured, and we’ve lost $7 billion of our own federal tax dollars. Yet we have still not been given a good reason other than that it was President Barack Obama’s idea.
Now Tennessee leads the country in medical bankruptcies, rural hospital closures per capita, opioid deaths and infant mortality rates and is bringing up the rear in health care access. We have a four-alarm health care fire in Tennessee, and now we’re supposed to trust the party that refused buckets of water and let it burn to do the right thing with even less oversight and more “flexibility?”
Lee has intentionally ducked this week’s public hearings while calling the very qualified professionals and parents speaking out against his block grant “misinformed.” But they’re not. They know the truth about what’s happening here in Tennessee and the irresponsible tragedy of not expanding Medicaid, and they simply don’t trust Lee to put Tennessee’s children, elderly, poor and most vulnerable ahead of money and politics this time around either.
“I had hoped Governor Lee’s religious faith would’ve given him more of a heart for the poor, especially as we anticipate the Day of Prayer he has called,” Rep. Jim Cooper said at the public hearing in Nashville this week. Amen, Jim. On that Day of Prayer, Lee might want to say one for his own soul, and the soul of his party.
“Faith without works is dead.” — James 2:17
Justin Kanew is a co-founder of the Tennessee Holler.
Trump has left our Kurdish allies to die, even after they lost 11,000 in our fight against ISIS. The Protest of Trump’s betrayal of our Kurdish allies in Nashville was massive.
Watch and share our video – also on Facebook and Twitter.
Congressman Jim Cooper was also there.
CLIP: “I rarely participate in protests… but this is TOTALLY WRONG.” – @repjimcooper at the #NashvilleKurds protest yesterday.
FULL VIDEO: https://t.co/M7tBrDcggq#KurdsBetrayedByTrump pic.twitter.com/xwBzIyb78b
— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) October 12, 2019
It’s no secret most Republicans legislators feel it’s their duty right now not to do what they think is right, but to stand by Trump at all costs – regardless of what he’s doing to societal/constitutional norms, the law, our global reputation and our allies.
Most have stayed silent as he pressured a foreign government to interfere in our elections by digging up dirt on his opponent, which they all refuse to defend and instead are awkwardly dancing around.
They’ve stayed silent as he has lied about it repeatedly.
They’ve stayed silent as he stopped witnesses from testifying… and distanced himself from his own ambassadors who were texting abut the quid pro quo… and pretended not to know the men who were executing the plan, who were just ARRESTED – who have been seen in pictures with him, and who have been palling around with his lawyer for many months, looking for Biden dirt in Ukraine.
The only issue on which Republicans have even shown the slightest bit of willingness to part with Trump is the issue of Syria, where Trump has just recently abandoned our Kurdish allies who have helped us against ISIS seemingly on a whim, without telling the very generals in charge of the situation over there.
The damage and destruction has already begun.
It’s worth noting that Turkish officials are some of Trump’s best customers at his hotel in DC, and he himself has business in Turkey. Yet again we have a president putting his own interests ahead of the country.
Rep. Mark Green is among the Republicans who have made it a point to excuse and support everything this president does, and now Green has even gone ahead and told us as much – telling NPR that he “fully supports” Trump’s actions in Syria even when he disagrees with it.
Here’s the quote: “I don’t agree with what he’s doing… I wish it wasn’t happening… but I still FULLY SUPPORT IT.”
Fuller transcript of this answer, in which Republican Rep. Green says he disagrees with Trump’s decision on Syria, but then again compares his support for Trump with his marriage pic.twitter.com/ewWA55peXl
— Tim Mak (@timkmak) October 9, 2019
This is leadership? Green is a military man, and apparently he thinks he was elected to blindly obey this president. But congress is supposed to exist as a separate branch, there to check the bad behavior of a president gone wild.
If our founders wanted a king, the American Revolution never would’ve happened.
Meanwhile we have Evangelical leaders calling for “obedience” to Trump. The Bible is very clear about false Gods.
The question becomes: At what point does a political party become a cult? Feels like we’re already there.
The constitution anticipates out-of-control presidents, which is why the powers of impeachment exist. But what happens when an entire political party becomes just as corrupt and complicit? There are many conservatives speaking out right now – George Will, conservative lawyers, military people – some of which even worked for Trump.
But in the end it will be up to senators like Lamar Alexander to put country before party and actually do something about it, or else pretty soon what we have won’t resemble anything like the country our founders intended.
Holler at Lamar and let him know it’s time to put country first: (202) 224-4944
On Thursday, Republican U.S. Senate Candidate Dr. Manny Sethi released a list of 174 “grassroots” activists supporting his campaign. Spoiler alert: We’re betting his opponent, former Trump ambassador to Japan Bill Hagerty, didn’t lose any sleep last night.
For instance, the most prominent official on Sethi’s list is State Rep. Bruce Griffey (District 75, Paris) and his wife, Rebecca. The Griffeys recently made statewide news for breaking state Republican Party bylaws in an attempt to intimidate a chancery court judge and ensure Rebecca Griffey’s appointment to the bench. The judge submitted her resignation to Governor Bill Lee after nine days, citing intimidation by the Griffeys.
Rep. Bruce Griffey and his wife, Rebecca, with disgraced former Tennessee House Speaker Glen Casada.
Elected officials also include State Rep. Kelly Keisling (District 38, Byrdstown.) In 2012, Keisling used his official state email address to share the rumor with constituents that then-President Barack Obama was planning to stage a fake assassination attempt in order to stop the 2012 election.
In a press release, Forrest Barnwell-Hagemeyer, Sethi’s campaign manager, said, “It’s clear that Dr. Manny is the choice of Tennessee conservatives.”
In addition to the Griffeys and Keisling, those conservatives include:
For a full list of Sethi’s grassroots cast of characters, go to the Tennessee Journal.
We wanted to share this TWITTER THREAD by @Susan_Hennessey with you that sheds some light on the basic points about Trump’s hypocritical, baseless, destructive, impeachable mission to pressure foreign governments to go after his political opponent.
Hunter Biden profiting off of the Biden name is not something anyone should be happy about, but it’s also not illegal, and it doesn’t excuse Trump manipulating the entire apparatus of the American government to do his political bidding, Also, the Trump family is the last family in the world that should be attacking him for it considering how the Trump kids have been doing the same and worse – and Trump has been profiteering off the Oval Office since the beginning.
Meanwhile another whistleblower tells us Trump is meddling with the IRS to keep us from seeing his taxes. What a mess.
Here’s SUSAN’S THREAD on why Biden actually followed the rules and norms that Trump has not.
All presidents and vice presidents and cabinet members have family and friends whose jobs might be impacted by policy. That’s why we ask them to observe transparent ethics processes and norms. That is what Biden did. That is what Trump doesn’t do.
To begin with, we ask that presidents and vice presidents divest from personal business holdings. That is what Biden did. That is what Trump didn’t do.
Then we ask that presidents and vice presidents disclose tax returns and financial records to ensure transparency. That is what Biden did. That is what Trump refuses to do.
Then we ask presidents and vice presidents to observe the laws and norms against nepotism in government, by not hiring their family members. Biden observed those norms and laws. Trump refuses to do so.
Even when presidents & VPs divest from personal conflicts, disclose finances & avoid nepotism, sometimes questions still arise. Some things they can’t recuse from & will impact their own financial interests or family/friends. Things like tax cuts, foreign policy, military action.
And so we expect them to observe the norms of process in order to bolster legitimacy. By working through places like State Department, relying on interagency recommendations. It creates reassurance that decisions are being made in the national interest and not personal interest.
What Trump has done is refused to divest from his business, refused to disclose tax returns and financial documents, handed his children government jobs, and then circumvented regular process in the face of opposition from the executive branch and Congress.
Because Biden observed all ethics rules and norms, and was acting on behalf of the US with international support—a position reached through robust and transparent process—we can have confidence in his actions, even in situations in which someone identifies a possible conflict.
This is why past presidents and vice presidents have voluntarily observed these rules (at least most of them and usually). Because they know they may need it to preserve political legitimacy. But Trump doesn’t care about legitimacy. He is openly unethical and self-interested.
Here is a piece I wrote on exactly this problem in January 2017 and why ethics rules are essential to national security.
And here is a book I wrote with Benjamin Wittes which has a whole entire chapter devoted to the subject, chock-full of fun historical examples!
Finally! The Williamson County Republican Party, party of deposed-House Speaker Glen Casada and Senator Marsha Blackburn , weighed in on climate change yesterday, and on the hottest October day on record to boot.
Nashville Severe Weather noted yesterday was the area’s hottest day on record.
Wait.
Before we get too hopeful for rationality, let’s review what the local GOP said. An email sent to subscribers began with a request for right-wingers to step up and run for Williamson County School Board — a non-partisan race — in 2020.
According to the Grand Ole Party, it’s necessary for good conservatives to come to the aid of their party and their county because all those poor underpaid public school teachers are bent on indoctrinating children with wild theories about climate change and oh, showing respect for people who aren’t white.
“The sad reality is that like Climate Change activist Greta Thunberg, students all over the country have become products of indoctrination and fear in the public school system from a very young age,” said the post. (Psst: Which country? Greta is from Sweden.)
Screen shot of email sent by Williamson County GOP to subscribers.
The post added “certain staff and educators” are forcing white privilege training on teachers in the county school system.
These claims aren’t new. Earlier this year, the Williamson GOP made news when they went bonkers about a training on inclusion in schools.
Nor is this the party’s first time at interjecting partisan politics into the local school elections. In 2014, GOP donor Kent Davis advised Republican candidates for the — again, for the cheap seats: non-partisan — school board on strategies for ousting then Director of Schools Mike Looney, a frequent target of the right. In an email outlining his strategy, Davis included Casada and Susan Curlee, who was elected to the board that year. (Curlee has since moved to Lawrence County, where she chairs the Lawrence County Republican Party.)
So, the fear of indoctrination and a bent for injecting partisan politics into what is — and should be — non-partisan races isn’t surprising.
But, Greta is still right.
This week throughout Tennessee public hearings for comments about Governor Bill Lee’s possibly illegal block grant proposal are being held. A Block Grant would hand a giant lump sum of medicaid dollars to a group of people who have already shown they don’t actually care about the suffering of poor Tennesseans, having rejected billions of Medicaid expansion dollars for no non-political reason.
It has cost us BILLIONS. We’re #1 in Rural hospital closures, medical bankruptcies, at the bottom in opioid deaths, infant mortality, the list goes on. Medicaid expansion would help all of those things. A block grant will only exacerbate them.
The hearing in Nashville was emotional, but Lee and the TN GOP wouldn’t know because they weren’t there, and they didn’t have anyone there to record it or take note of the comments.
We were there though. Below are a few clips.
Rep. Jim Cooper: “I had hoped Gov. Lee’s religious faith would’ve given him more of a heart for the poor, especially as we anticipate the Day of Prayer he has called.”
Cooper exposes Lee’s (illegal?) Block Grant as a bad deal for Tennessee & our most vulnerable:
“These aren’t just numbers. There are real people suffering… This is a faithful state- we should be helping the poor, not hurting them.”
Holler co-Founder Kanew speaks up:
“If it wasn’t for my family there are times I wouldn’t have anything to eat. It’s so humiliating.”
DEVASTATING testimony from a woman who lost Medicaid to a paperwork snafu. Governor Lee’s proposal will lead to more of these stories, not less:
Some HIGHLIGHTS of the great Trae Crowder’s glorious TAKEDOWN of TN GOP Senate candidate Bill Hagerty’s entirely predictable, disingenuous pandering. His opponent: Iraq War Veteran James Mackler.
Some HIGHLIGHTS of the great @traecrowder’s glorious TAKEDOWN of TN GOP Senate candidate @BillHagertyTN’s entirely predictable, disingenuous pandering.
His opponent: Iraq War Veteran @James_Mackler https://t.co/LOJ0ZkY3IF ??
FULL VIDEO: https://t.co/39oaUFU5XT pic.twitter.com/6ye6G9vJ5P
— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) October 1, 2019
By Alexandria Huff
This Post was first seen in Die Barliner – The Bard College Student Blog
As activists around the United States mobilize against the unacceptable conditions inside of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facilities, the agency continues its operations on the ground in American cities. On September 5th, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers shot Jose Fernando Andrade-Sanchez in his car as he attempted to leave the Food Lion parking lot in Antioch, Tennessee, a suburb of Nashville.
The shooting, which occurred in broad daylight at a heavily trafficked intersection, left the 39-year-old Mexican man alive but with bullet wounds in his stomach and his elbow that required surgery at a Nashville area hospital. At the end of the day on September 6th, local students were so disoriented that their teachers rode home with them on the school bus. “There was such a concern and fear in the community because children didn’t know what they were coming back to [after the shooting]. And it’s all because of this one ICE agent who has no accountability to anybody,” Brenda Perez of The MIX, said in an interview with Democracy Now.
Bradley Thomas Epley, a 49-year-old former Border Patrol officer, was one of the two Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents present in the Food Lion parking lot on September 5th. Though ICE spokesperson Brian Cox told reporters that Andrade-Sanchez drove towards the officer as he fled the scene, video footage shows an agent drawing his gun and following the vehicle, and firing two shots through the windshield.
A closer look at Bradley Epley’s history as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent reveals allegations of illegal activity, violence and at least two cases of mistaken identity. Epley was named in two federal lawsuits alleging illegal search and seizure in 2010. Both lawsuits were settled out of court.
In 2017, Epley arrested Faustino Rodriguez Hernandez in a Nashville courthouse on federal immigration charges. Hernandez had appeared in court that day to settle a traffic violation. In July of 2019, Epley was in the news again when he and another ICE official attempted a warrantless arrest of a Hendersonville man and were blocked by a human chain of the man’s neighbors. Many Americans, including some politicians (after being pressured by directly affected communities), are seeking to abolish ICE. The cruelty and incompetence of the agency is illustrated by taking a closer look at the public record of an agent like Bradley Epley.
VIDEO: “Human Chain In Hermitage”
Watch neighbors form a HUMAN CHAIN in Hermitage yesterday to protect a father and son from ICE and allow them to get from the van they were trapped in for hours into their house.
(Video from @OccupyDemocrats & Nashville Noticias) pic.twitter.com/j5sBk5D00O
— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) July 23, 2019
The first federal lawsuit in which Bradley Epley appears was brought by David Tapia-Tovar and Ana Maria Vazquez. Epley was named as one of several ICE officers who forced their way into Tapia-Tovar’s home, grabbed him by the arm and forced him into his living room as other officers then searched the house without a warrant. A complaint filed on Tapia-Tovar and Vazquez’s behalf in Nashville district court reveals that not only did the ICE officers force their way into Tapia-Tovar’s home without a warrant, but that Tapia-Tovar was not the intended target of the search:
53. As he sat handcuffed on the couch, David asked the first ICE agent why he and the others had entered their home.
54. In reply, one ICE agent held a file folder a few feet in front of David’s face. Attached to the front of the folder was a large photograph of a man of Latino appearance.
55. The man in the photograph bore no resemblance to David. His skin was darker, his nose was wider, and his eyes were set differently.
56. No reasonable person could mistake the man in the photograph for David.
57. Printed on the cover of the ICE folder was the name “David Tovar-Najera.”
58. David and Anna had never known or even heard of a person named David Tovar-Najera before this encounter. [*1]
Tapia-Tovar, an undocumented immigrant, was removed from his home and taken to the ICE office where deportation proceedings were initiated. His complaint alleges that Epley lied to the immigration court about how ICE agents were able to enter Tapia-Tovar’s home. Epley also stated that “[Tapia-Tovar] had entered the United States at an unknown time of day and at an unknown location,” which is the “policy and practice of the Nashville ICE Office…when completing ICE database processing of suspected aliens ICE agents encounter,” the complaint states. The lawsuit calls Epley’s statement “[another] utter and transparent fabrication.” The lawsuit, which was filed by Ozment Law, was settled out of court.
The second lawsuit Epley appeared in that year was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on behalf of fifteen plaintiffs, including American citizens, who lived at the Claremont Apartments in South Nashville. They were illegally detained by Epley and other officers when they raided the complex without a warranton October 20, 2010, leading to the arrest of twenty people. Lindsay Kee of the ACLU of Tennessee described the scene:
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents began hitting objects against the bedroom windows, trying to break in. Without a search warrant and without consent, the ICE agents eventually knocked in the front door and shattered a window, shouting racial slurs and storming into the bedrooms, holding guns to some people’s heads. When asked if they had a warrant, one agent reportedly said, “We don’t need a warrant, we’re ICE,” and, gesturing to his genitals, “the warrant is coming out of my balls.” [*2]
The lawsuit alleged that Epley and the other ICE officers at the Clairmont Apartments physically and verbally abused the plaintiffs, including pointing guns at the heads of two men, Jesus Villalobos and Javier Deras. The city and federal government settled the lawsuit for $310,000.
Whether Epley or the other agents cited in these lawsuits were punished by Immigration and Customs Enforcement is unknown.
In June 2017, in the months following Donald Trump’s inauguration, Bradley Epley arrested 33-year-old Faustino Rodriguez Hernandez in a Nashville courthouse. Hernandez is an Hounduran man who was in the court of General Sessions Judge Lynda Jones for a traffic violation; he had been caught driving without a license. The ICE officials on site took him into custody on an ICE warrant, which was not signed by a judge and doesn’t allow court officers to detain an individual on ICE’s behalf. Assistant Public Defender Mary Kathryn Harcombe told The Tennessean that court employees typically don’t understand the distinction between an ICE warrant and a standard warrant and might have illegally detained Hernandez, who was handed over to Epley while Judge Jones was out of the room. In an admission to The Tennessean via email, Judge Lynda Jones said that Epley nearly arrested the wrong man earlier that day: “The agent [Epley] informed my court officer that the true warranted individual was the ‘spittin image’ of the gentleman who was almost wrongfully arrested. My court officer stated that the ICE agent then said, ‘TRUST ME.’”
On the morning of July 22, 2019, Epley and another officer arrived in the Nashville suburb of Hermitage in a white pickup truck, and pulled into the driveway of an unnamed family home, blocking a van that the man and his son were sitting in. The man and his son locked themselves in their car to avoid the ICE agents, initiating a four-hour-long standoff. The Nashville Scene reports that more than a dozen of the man’s neighbors, as well as local immigrant rights activists, gathered in the front yard with snacks, water, cool towels to fight against the heat and gas to keep the van running. Like the warrant Epley brought to the Nashville courthouse, the warrant on July 22 had not been signed by a judge and did not allow officers to forcibly enter the man’s car or home. The MIX reports that at one point the father and son were told by an ICE agent, “We’ll just call the cops and they’ll arrest you, and then when they’re done with you in the jail, then we’ll get you.” Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) officers were on the scene during the standoff.
Eventually the man’s neighbors made a human chain so he and his son could safely exit the car and re-enter their home. By 10 AM, Epley, his fellow officer, and the MNPD left the scene. The attempted arrest was conducted as a part of President Trump’s Operation Border Resolve, which targeted 2,000 families and resulted in 35 arrests. Local resident Angela Glass told the Scene, “These people, they’ve been living there for 14 years,” Glass says. “They don’t bother anybody. Our kids play with their kids. It’s just one big community. And we don’t want to see anything happen to them. They’re good people. They’ve been here 14 years, leave them alone.”
On 17 September, 2019, less than a month after being shot by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, Jose Fernando Andrade-Sanchez was arrested outside Ozment Law, an immigration law office in Nashville, Tennessee. Ozment Law, which in twenty years has never had an enforcement operation conducted on its property, said in a statement:
“Immigration agents’ decision to make a violent, aggressive arrest on a law firm’s private property sends a chilling message that even those with valid claims to adjusting their status and continuing their lives in this country are at risk.”
Andrade-Sanchez, who has previously been deported, has been charged with illegal reentry into the United States.
The record of Bradley Epley illustrates how Immigration and Customs Enforcement, aided by the Metro Nashville Police Department and Davidson County Sheriff Daron Hall, has terrorized the Middle Tennessee community for over a decade, traumatizing individuals and families. Increased scrutiny of Immigration and Customs Enforcement under the Trump administration has caused some Americans to boycott companies like Amazon that provide ICE with facial recognition technology, to call for the immediate abolition of the agency, and to demand that 2020 Democratic Presidential Candidates make the abolition of ICE a part of their 2020 platform.
A week after the shooting of Jose Fernando Andrade-Sanchez, theNashville Scene published a two-piece cover package on the deportation pipeline. As the MIX’s Brenda Perez pointed out on Facebook, “I’m glad the Nashville Scene is covering this, I will be more enthused when they center and interview undocumented people on issues that affect us. We have been here and our daily lives are the front lines.”
Bradley Epley is still employed by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. He lives in Hendersonville, Tennessee.
Notes:
[*1] http://www.lawreport.org/pdf/ICETennessee.pdf
[*2] https://www.aclu.org/blog/we-dont-need-warrant-were-ice
