Janice Bowling Unwittingly Makes Case for Abortion

Staunchly anti-reproductive freedom Senator JANICE BOWLING unwittingly made the case for abortion rights while fighting a UT vaccine requirement.

 

Lee’s Failed COVID19 “Strategy”

“We believe our #COVID19 strategy may well be working BETTER than a statewide mask mandate.”
 
Gov. Bill Lee has the audacity to claim that his “strategy” is working; meanwhile, Tennessee continues to have record-breaking case increases and Lee doesn’t even follow his own advice.

Governor Lee, Mask Hypocrite

Hospitalizations are spiking, yet Governor Bill Lee won’t approve a mask mandate – despite the White House’s request.
Instead, he spends millions on mask ads, yet HE has been Maskless. He told reporters he only takes it off to pose for pics. NOPE.

KANEW TO WILLIAMSON COUNTY: CANCEL CASADA

“If values matter, if we’re trying to teach our kids to do the right thing, we need to #CancelCasada like his own Republican caucus did.”

Watch The Holler’s Justin Kanew help WILLIAMSON COUNTY remember why ex-speaker Glen Casada had to resign in shame.

Here’s his op-ed in the Tennessean.

OP-ED: GOP REP. MIKE SPARKS Distorts MLK’s Words to Justify A Racist, Oppressive Agenda

Mike Sparks is facing an extremely difficult election this cycle.  Brandon Thomas is a young, black man with a progressive platform and widespread support, particularly among young people. He’s energetic and has put in the work to make personal connections with a huge swath of the district’s electorate.

Sparks, by contrast, has spent much of his time defending the bust of KKK Grand Wizard Nathan Bedford Forest in the state’s capital and claiming to the Tennessee Holler that he doesn’t know why the civil war was fought.

He even took some time out of this busy schedule to pen an Op-Ed for the Murfreesboro Voice in defense of Trump loving Ex-Democrat John DeBerry.

In it, he claims that DeBerry is some kind of victim for having been ousted from the Democratic ticket over his litany of absurd statements and positions. This is, of course, absurd, as the Democratic Party is a political organization with every right to decide not to lend its apparatus to a candidate who does not fit with their values. Unlike Sparks’ Republican Party, which seems to jump frantically from one ideology to another in pursuit of power, the Democrats seem to have at least some standards.

I don’t find myself overly disturbed by Sparks’ defense of DeBerry, however. This is run-of-the-mill culture war nonsense that Republicans always gin up a month or so before an election to drive out their base. It’s ridiculous, but it comes with the territory. I do take issue with Sparks’ appropriation of the language of resistance, which he does so brazenly that I can only assume that he is as ignorant of its context as he is of our own state’s Confederate history.

The absurdity begins as he mentions the iconic anti-fascist poem by German pastor Martin Niemoller, “First They Came…” Sparks doesn’t actually quote any lines from the poem, likely because the very first line of the poem’s most famous form is “first they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out- because I was not a socialist.”

This isn’t a poem about a wealthy, longtime state representative being removed from his party for supporting a fascist president. It’s about the ways in which authoritarian governments divide their population and attack those in the political, religious, and racial minorities while assuring all others that they’re safe as part of the majority.

It’s a critique of the “Us versus Them” mentality.

Does this sound familiar? One example might be an authoritarian president building a campaign on the claim that a large portion of Mexican immigrants are dangerous criminals, or banning a religious minority from entering the country.

Another example could be a clownish Governor and entrenched supermajority passing laws that target protestors and strip them of their voting rights for the crime of daring to speak up in defense of black life. I wonder what Mike Sparks would have to say about events like that?

It’s the excerpt from Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” which is the most egregious, however. Unlike the poem, of which one could give Sparks the benefit of assuming ignorance, he adamantly claims to have read this document, and yet his understanding of it seems to be on the level of someone who skimmed Dr. King’s work for quotes that could be construed to agree with him.

He goes with the oft-quoted warning that “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” This is a remarkably convenient line for Sparks, and is so removed from its context as to be nearly meaningless. However, to find this line, he was forced to sift through a mountain of criticism for laws that look identical to the anti-protest bill that he just voted for!

For an obvious example, Dr. King says that “there is nothing wrong in having an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade. But such an ordinance becomes unjust when it is used to maintain segregation and to deny citizens the First-Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and protest.”

This speaks to a greater tendency among the right to quote Dr. King while categorically refusing his key claim that all actions must be viewed within the context which has given rise to them. This is what Dr. King meant when he said that “riots are the language of the unheard,” and it is absolutely central to his brilliant understanding of opposition to hierarchy and oppression.

While Brandon Thomas travels the district meeting constituents and accepting endorsements from workers unions and activist groups, Mike Sparks spends his time defending the racist authoritarians of the past like Nathan Bedford Forest, and the racist authoritarians of today like Donald Trump.

He is a voice for the powerful against the powerless, an advocate for order at the expense of justice.

He is what Dr. King would call “the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action.’”

No man who votes to protect a bust honoring a KKK Grand Wizard or strip voting rights from peaceful protestors for “camping” should be using the words of Dr. King or Pastor Niemoller. We cannot allow the defenders of power and authoritarianism to co-opt the language of true, profound resistance to such horrors.

We should learn from our history, so that men like Mike Sparks aren’t able to distort it for their own agenda.

 

Brendon Donoho is a student at MTSU, president of MTSU Young Democratic Socialists of America, and a resident of Rutherford County

Busting the GOP Voter Fraud Myth

Top GOP election judge Benjamen Ginsberg announces his retirement and “REPUDIATES EVERYTHING HE’S EVER SAID ABOUT RAMPANT VOTER FRAUD – SAYS IT’S A NON-ISSUE.”
Jim Cooper‘s COS Lisa Quigley busts the GOP‘s voter fraud myth on #HollerHour with Justin Kanew and Cassie.

Governor Lee Plays Dumb

“I haven’t read that report.” ?‬ ‪Gov. Bill Lee plays dumb about Trump’s admission that he intentionally “downplayed” a virus that has killed 190,000 Americans, including ~2000 Tennesseans. ‬

Bill Lee’s COVID19 Response Failure

Our Governor’s weak, feckless response to COVID19 is costing lives. He can’t name a single expert that supports his decision to reopen schools. They don’t have the testing ability to follow CDC guidelines, yet Lee says they are “safely” reopening schools (“to the degree that it’s possible”). His administration has dragged its feet with regard to transparency throughout this crisis, and lab turnaround times are still severely lagging, putting more lives at risk.

And yet the special session called for the week of August 10th will be focusing on weakening worker protections within the context of COVID19 and further criminalizing the protesters who have been occupying the plaza outside the State Capitol. They will also be strategizing ways to expand telehealth, which is the one positive aspect of the upcoming special session.

Watch the videos below to see just where our Governor’s priorities lie:

REP MIKE SPARKS can’t say whether the CIVIL WAR was fought over SLAVERY or not!

Representative Mike Sparks of Smyrna can’t answer whether the Civil War was fought over slavery. This coming right on the heels of Sparks pleading with the Capitol Commission to keep the bust of the first Grand Wizard of the KKK in the Tennessee State Capitol.

Peak white supremacy.

Brandon Thomas is running against Sparks.

TODAY’S HOLLER: TN GOP DISHONOR’S GAY BLACK TEEN’S MEMORY

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TN GOP DISHONORS BLACK TEEN’S MEMORY: Talk about hypocrisy… TN Republicans have ignored the sins of confederate generals & KKK GRAND WIZARDS CHILD SEX ABUSERS, protecting their legacy with statues and holidays — yet they tried to to define a gay black 17 year-old girl who was shot to death -Ashanti Posey – by one unproven accusation, and refused to back a resolution honoring her on the house floor. Non-Facebook Link


Rep. Mike Stewart called it “the most astonishing vote I’ve ever seen”.

Rep. London Lamar: “That was one of the most immoral votes I’ve seen in my short time as a legislator.” ‬

‬Senator Jeff Yarbro called it “INDECENT” on Channel 5.

Rep. Gloria Johnson: “If you think that they did this for any other reason [other than] because she is black and gay, you’re sadly mistaken. They are bigots.”

“THIS IS MY DAUGHTER! THIS IS A HUMAN BEING! NOT A DRUG DEALER!” Ashanti Posey’s mother Amber Posey showed up at the Capitol to show William Lamberth & the GOP the humanity behind the 17 year old girl they slandered and refused to honor. Non-Facebook Link

BLACK CAUCUS ASKS FOR “INCLUSION” (and gets called racist for it: “HOW MANY PEOPLE OF COLOR HAD INPUT THAT LANDED IN THE BUDGET?” – Rep. Parkinson & the black caucus ask for “INCLUSION” in TN’s budget, telling the 99% white TN GOP it “hurts” to be consistently ignored. Non-Facebook Link

Rep. Matthew Hill got triggered. Rep. Jeremy Faison called it racist to even ask, saying there’s “Nothing remotely racist” about the GOP caucus– so HERE’S A THREAD WE MADE OF THE GOP CAUCUS BEING SUPER RACIST, which comes from a list in a TENNESSEAN ARTICLE.

Faison is either blind, or a liar.

Worth remembering: WILLIAM LAMBERTH failed to mention he gets?from private prisons that oppose marijuana reform. ?‬ We see you, William. ‬


Here’s how they voted… “Present Not Voting” was as good as a “No”.

ALSO:

-Unlike Reps Hill & White who say they’d change their vote today, Rep. Brandon Ogles of FRANKLIN stands by his vote to help block the resolution honoring the death of 17yo Ashanti Posey… but is vague about why, other than following “his leader”. Such leadership! Non-Facebook Link

‪-IMAGES from the balcony, where protestors were arrested after Republicans rejected the resolution to honor Ashanti Posey. ‬

-Speaking of racism and statues, in NEW MEXICO a video shows Trump supporter Steven Baca shooting an anti-racist protester, Scott Williams, over one.

-Intentionally antagonistic Tennessee Republicans are being very clear that they have no use for free speech or the concerns of black people. ‬Believe them. ‬(Also: We’d bet many of these troopers have smoked weed. #AshantiPosey ‬)

-Some good news – Ohio police have issued a warrant for a Trump supporter who sucker-punched a protestor in Bethel, OHIO… Our CLIP of the incident was seen over 1 million times. Hopefully it helped.

-The State & The Feds dismiss the $25 Million medical fraud case against TN GOP Senator Steve Dickerson for an UNDISCLOSED SETTLEMENT”? ??- must be nice to benefit from the inequality in our justice system.‬ (His company was accused of DEFRAUDING HEALTH PROGRAMS for $25M using “liquid gold” urine tests.)

We talked to the TEENS FOR EQUALITY, the impressive young girls who organized the biggest march in Nashville so far. Non-Facebook Link

-‪“GOVERNOR LEE, tear down this bust.” ‬Tennessee REPUBLICAN Jason Emert calls on Lee to do the right thing to help our state heal. ‬

WATCH: “LET US IN!” After 3 days of peaceful protest, the People are kept out of the People’s Plaza (and legislature) at the Nashville Capitol by Speaker Sexton & Governor Lee, who are attempting to make this a felony. Non-Facebook Link

“You took off your sheets and put on suits but we know who you are.” –  Justin Jones — 21 were arrested.

-His first time back at the Capitol, activist Justin Jones rides up in the elevator with the TN GOP’s admitted child sex abuser Rep. David Byrd… and serenades him. ? ? ‬Non-Facebook Link

-A black security guard was killed during protests in Oakland and many said he was killed by “looters” — but the suspect is a vet with ties to the Alt-right “Boogaloo“ folks, who actually killed 2 cops. Related: Still 0 “ANTIFA”-connected arrests.

-HOUSTON. ANOTHER black man found hanging. ‬That’s 5 across the country in recent days. ‬

Good point.

-We also spoke with the lawyer for Sterling Higgins, who died in custody in UNION CITY 15 months ago. “Imagine if there was a #GeorgeFloyd grand jury and the prosecutor decided NOT TO SHOW THE VIDEO.” ?‬ — we’ve now seen video of Sterling being held by the neck for over 6 minutes. No charges were filed. PODCAST ON ITUNES.

WATCH: TN SENATE REPUBLICANS KILL 4 AMENDMENTS TO HELP REGULAR FOLKS ?

-coverage for new moms
-Support for people with disabilities to live on their own
-$150M for schools about to lay off people
-cost of living adjustment EQUAL TO Gov. Bill Lee’s for EVERY state employee

Non-Facebook Link

-ICYMI — THE SUPREME COURT has ruled sexual orientation is protected under the Civil Rights Act. ?️‍? ‬(unfortunately many in Tennessee seem prepared to ignore it)

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