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.
The family then gathered their belongings into plastic bags and fled.
Read the Newsweek story.
(Video from Occupy Democrats & Nashville Noticias)
There are 15 candidates running for 5 at-large seats on the Metro Council in the August election. Zulfat Suara is the first Muslim woman to have ever run for any position in the state of Tennessee- she ran in 2014 in Bolivar, Tenn., for school board – and if elected, she will be the first Muslim, male or female, ever elected in Tennessee.
She has been the target of hate online, but she has persevered, and was just recently one of the candidates endorsed by the Tennessean.
We spoke with Zulfat in Nashville at a candidates picnic at Vanderbilt, where one of her daughters is enrolled in Medical school. Please watch and SHARE the video.
MEET ZULFAT:
Tennesseans across the state gather to protest the Trump administration’s inhumane treatment of refugees and immigrants at the border, especially children.
Video from Beto O’Rourke’s rally here in Tennessee this week. Beto was impressive, and the energy was great. We appreciate his optimistic message about immigration, and we also appreciate that he came to see us and spent time in the community.
We hope all the other presidential candidates will do the same.
Here’s Governor Lee yesterday telling Anna Grabowski Rep. David Byrd will be gone “soon”.
He has since said he didn’t mean soon, he meant he asked him not to run again – meaning he believes Byrd to be guilty of the child sex abuse he’s accused of, yet is willing to let him serve out his term anyway. Wonderful!
Meanwhile Byrd told a reporter Lee did NOT ask him not to run again… before then trying to walk that back.
So. Much. Moonwalking.
So. Little. Leadership.
Here’s a new Facebook Live interview from this morning with Andy Spears of the TN Education report.
Andy talks about the #VoucherVultures descending on Nashville thanks to Governor Bill Lee’s new legislation, and what we can do to push back against Lee’s all-out assault on public schools.
Yesterday the Tennessean ran a jaw-dropping article in which former Rep. Barry Doss (R-Lawrenceburg) was quoted as saying Rep. David Byrd – who has apologized on tape to 1 of 3 women who say he sexually abused them when he was their high school basketball coach – has admitted he’s “ashamed of his past” but that “God has forgiven him”.
Doss also recently approached Kristina Richardson of Enough Is Enough – Tennessee and defended Byrd by saying that “There’s a lot more people that have molested people than you’re letting on.”
The “everyone does” it defense is an interesting one to use when it comes to child sex abuse.
He even seemed to implicate Governor Lee as someone with skeletons in his closet. The whole thing has to be seen to be believed. WATCH THE VIDEO:
The other man in the video is Kevin Baigert, who runs the Roving Patriots PAC with his wife Laura, and who was involved with helping to launch the Tennessee Star, a right-wing propaganda outlet (whose CEO owes his ex-wife hundreds of thousands in child support).
In the video Baigert tells Kristina that if she wants to go after Byrd she needs to go after Rep. Rick Staples also, as well as Martin Luther King Jr., even though neither have admitted on tape to child sex abuse with teenage girls.
Richardson also makes the astute point that as a Hardin County resident David Byrd is her representative, and Martin Luther King Jr. is not. She then tells the two men she is not being paid, and says she is one of 6 women of Enough Is Enough who are speaking up about the Byrd issue on behalf of the survivors.
Kristina handled herself well. Truly fascinating to watch Doss and Baigert essentially mount the “Everyone does it” defense on behalf of Byrd, whose behavior Doss repeatedly insists he is not “condoning”.
It’s important to note that what Doss does NOT say is “Byrd didn’t do it.”
At the same event we saw Senator Joey Hensley call Byrd a “good person” and a changed man, which tells us that Republicans have abandoned the “Byrd didn’t do it” defense – clearly realizing nobody was buying that – and have now moved on to saying he did it but he’s a new man, a good Christian and that since God has forgiven him we all should too.
Ironically, Governor Lee JUST THIS WEEK signed a bill that removed statute of limitations for child sex abuse that passed the house and senate easily.
So to sum up the Republican position: Child sex abusers should be punished regardless of how much time has passed… unless you’re David Byrd.
The hypocrisy runs deep.
We should note that Governor Lee has left the door open to expelling Byrd in the upcoming August 23rd special session to replace Glen Casada as speaker. Between now and then, everyone in Tennessee should be showing up at town halls and hollering at every elected official to ask ON TAPE if they agree Byrd Must Go.
Salute to Kristina for this video. Please send all other videos of reps being asked our way: [email protected]