PARKINSON RIPS LAMBERTH’S ANTI-RIOTING BILL

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Watch Rep. Antonio Parkinson (D-Memphis) Rip House GOP Majority Leader William Lamberth’s anti-rioting bill for completely ignoring the ROOT CAUSE of the reason people are upset.

 

UT-Knoxville Student On Video Saying Vile, Violent Racist Slurs Claims “Catfish”

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In a video circulating online, UT-Knoxville Student Garrison Pike is seen saying vile, violent, ugly racial slurs, using the “N” Word repeatedly and threatening to “rape” black people who he says are “nothing”.

UT Knoxville acknowledged the video yesterday in a tweet and said they are looking into it.

Many UT students are outraged and say they’re afraid to be at school with Pike around, calling for his expulsion.

Friends of Pike’s have contacted the Holler to give what they say is “context”, sharing text messages in which Pike attempts to explain that he was drunk and essentially catfished by an African-American person he was exchanging messages with on a dating site who “said they were into slavemaster shit”.

TEXT FROM GARRISON PIKE

PIKE’S TEXT TO A FRIEND READS:

“So when I broke up with my ex I was really depressed and I was talking to this person on a dating site who said they were African-American and we talked for about a week and a half and they said they were into slave master shit and sent me a text of what to say to them and I waited a few days before I said it because I was drunk and just wanted to make someone happy and it turns out they were a catfish but they told me they wouldn’t share the video with anyone and now it’s blown up and I’m getting death threats and was suspended Ik what I said was shitty but it’s not me. Now i have the cops driving by my house every hour and my address in on twitter.

To be clear, the video is EXTREMELY nasty and disturbing, and no amount of context excuses ever saying ANYTHING like this, let alone recording yourself doing it and sending it to a stranger.

We will let y’all decide what you believe here.

Some on twitter have posted what they claim to be an exchange with an ex of Pike’s who says HE is the one with the slavemaster fetish, but we have been unable to confirm.

We’re told Pike is receiving death threats, has been suspended, and it seems likely his enrollment at UT is in jeopardy.

We’ve communicated with students who went to Ravenwood High School in Williamson County with Pike, who was class of 2018. They seemed surprised but not altogether shocked.

One said this kind of racism was not the norm in their experience, but another told us that on cultural heritage day the student body president brought a confederate flag to school, which many minority students were upset by, and felt black students in Williamson County are appreciated only for their athletic ability.

Not long, ago Williamson County parents were up in arms about the school system trying to introduce some racial sensitivity and “white privilege” training for teachers into the program.

It’s also worth pointing out that Williamson County still has a confederate flag on their county seal, which many residents would like to see changed (including Holler founder Justin Kanew)

It stands to reason that as long as things like that are allowed to exist, we should expect more incidents of this nature.

We will update the story surrounding Pike as it develops.

INTERVIEW: TN REP. ANTONIO PARKINSON (D-MEMPHIS)

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Rep. Antonio Parkinson (D-Memphis) joins us to talk about the protests and more.

 

INTERVIEW: ATLANTA ANTIFA SPEAKS

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The president has just attempted to declare Antifa a terrorist organization, and there has been a concerted effort by conservatives to blame the social upheaval we’re seeing on Antifa to distract from the real issues of police brutality and white supremacy.

There have been many videos of white people dressed in black causing destruction, but we’ve also seen that white supremacists are doing the same in an effort to pin the blame on Antifa… so where does the truth lie? What is Antifa exactly?

In an effort to hear from Antifa directly, we reached out to Atlanta Antifa on Twitter, and they responded and were kind enough to talk to us. This is what they had to say.

—-

HOLLER:  My first question is, what is Antifa?

Atlanta Antifa:  “Well I think at this point it’s a rapidly evolving word and it’s used in two ways, one is just generically anti-fascist. Anybody who doesn’t like Nazis. So in that definition, there is there’s a lot of people who say people who fought in World War II were Antifa, and you know in a certain perspective that’s totally true, but it’s also used in a more specific way to talk about the groups that rose out of the old anti-racist actions from the 80s and 90s which were specifically designed to fight the far right, to monitor and counter KKK, Nazis, racist boneheads…. and then in the modern era, the alt-right. So our group is part of that more specific meaning of the word Antifa and we consider ourselves to be in that tradition. It’s an international movement to monitor and counter the far-right.“

HOLLER:  And when you say our group, who is our group?

Atlanta Antifa:  “Atlanta Anti-Fascists.”

HOLLER:  How much coordination is there among Antifa groups in America?

Atlanta Antifa:  “I would say we have a lot of coordination in terms of information sharing because really the vast majority of the work we do is monitoring, using open source intelligence. We will try to doxx Nazis and uncover their plans, de-platform them, so we share a lot of information, frequently publicly, in a decentralized way. We have no hierarchy, so there’s no leader of Antifa, groups don’t use real names, we tend to use a lot of information security because the Nazis are after us you know like the Base Plot for example, when they tried to assassinate two people they thought were our members, so we use a lot of security in order to keep ourselves safe because the people that we are after are pretty violent.”

HOLLER:  So how did it start if there’s no hierarchy?

Atlanta Antifa:  “I would say that while being an anarchist is not a prerequisite for entry, the group is fairly non-ideological when it comes to that, the dominant culture comes out of the anarchist political tradition in which you don’t want to have a strong structure or hierarchy because that a lot of times leads to abuse, so instead, folks contribute what they can. They do what they can and coordinate that way and operate by consensus and voting, and not “you do this, here and now.” We have coordination, but we don’t have hierarchy and leadership.”

HOLLER:  Is violence a part of what you do?

Atlanta Antifa:  “The vast majority of the time, no. Something like 99% of what we do is nonviolent. But, at the same time if it comes to that, we are definitely prepared to do that and we would not condemn it. I’m talking about stuff that Antifa, does encountering Nazis. For example, the protest in Newnan where there was a possibility of something like that happening but it was a community defense situation, it would have been defending AGAINST Nazis. So that’s pretty much the area where violence comes in. I would say our philosophy is we comment combat racism and fascism by any means necessary but almost all of the time those means are not violent.“

HOLLER:  So, I’m assuming you’re seeing what’s happening in the country right now…

Atlanta Antifa:  “Yes.”

HOLLER:  “…And there’s been a concerted effort by Republicans, the President, the right-wing, Fox News, and all the way down the line to state and local legislators on the right, to essentially lay this at the feet, in large part, of Antifa. What do you think when you see that?”

Atlanta Antifa:  “Well it’s sort of a wary disappointment because it feels like this has all been done before. It’s damaging I think because a lot of what is happening this weekend is a black-led reaction to white racist police violence and it shouldn’t really be about us. Although we are definitely very against racist beliefs, we are not planning or coordinating any of this. We are just supporting it. We are a small group, so our support mainly comes from monitoring these protests and trying to keep an eye out if any Nazis and far-right militia members are showing up so that we can warn people. That’s what we see as our function, but we have been sort of cast in the central role as the villain when we’re not even on the stage, let’s just put it that way. And it echoes back to the 1950s and 60s when racists were trying to discount the Civil Rights Movement which was led by black people they would say oh “they’re being puppeted by white Communists, it’s all outside agitators,” and I feel like people are reaching for that same playbook again and using us in order to discredit this other group. The other thing I want to say is that it’s dangerous because it encourages law enforcement to just crack down so much harder on people who are just trying to defend themselves against racists in their communities and these people may not have any connection at all to our group, which is a very specialized group in this tradition that I’m talking about going back to the 1980s, but anybody who says Nazis are bad now could be “ANTIFA” and will get cracked down harder on by police and law enforcement.”

HOLLER:  Right, meanwhile though there are videos all over the place of white people just dressed in all black running around being destructive, and we as the public have come to recognize mostly white people dressed in all black as Antifa. We’ve seen pictures of white supremacists dressing up as Antifa to create this narrative, but is it possible that there are actually people who consider themselves Antifa who are doing this?

Atlanta Antifa:  “Well, the situation is very chaotic and confusing, and the fact that there are white people causing damage, sometimes white people causing damage is it even political, like if you look at all these riots that happen after football. I think right now there’s a lot of different stuff happening and people do not want to examine the situation it is complexity, so they picked a very simple narrative, and the narrative a lot of people have picked are that we are the villain. I will say that that’s really our number one thing, is that we are trying to monitor any far-right people who have shown up at these protests that we can warn other protesters and track them, but it’s difficult because sometimes people hide their identities. We do think that sometimes the participation of white supremacists has been overstated though.”

HOLLER: So you’re involved with communication right? There’s something called The Torch Network?

Atlanta Antifa:  “Well, The Torch Network is just a loose affiliation of some Antifa groups such as us, Portland, and so on. It’s an information-sharing network connecting the larger groups. There a lot of Antifa groups that are not members of The Torch Network. But the thing to understand is it’s totally decentralized and autonomous, so anybody can say that they’re Antifa, and anybody can say that they’re not Antifa. So the fact that somebody who is white and wearing all black and is destroying something doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s “Antifa.”

HOLLER:  So you are involved in the communication theoretically of whatever this the closest thing to the centralized communication that there is. Is the goal to go out there and cause chaos or is it the opposite?

Atlanta Antifa:  “It’s neither. We have no goal, actually. When it comes to this protest, we basically we support any black-led rebellion against racist policing, let’s just put it that way. We support, it but we don’t have a role in controlling it, and if we could then we wouldn’t because we don’t think that’s our role. I know that the popular that perception is, that Antifa is all white, but that’s actually not the case. People who are involved in these Antifa groups all stay anonymous because we don’t want Nazis trying to kill us, and there are definitely members of Antifa who are not white, but those members tend to stay even more anonymous because they get even more negative attention.

When it comes to the riots, I keep saying this but it’s totally true – if you talk to these other groups they’ll say the same thing, that we are not planning this. We are not saying okay this is the goal and go do it. When groups are coming together and they’re tearing down Confederate statues or making the police retreat, we’re going to cheer that on because we believe that that’s a good thing, against fighting racism and fascism, but we are not coordinating this. We are not the Puppet Masters.”

HOLLER:  Right, so now the President has essentially said that they’re going to declare Antifa as a terrorist organization. How do you feel about that?

Atlanta Antifa:  “Well you know like I said at the beginning, we’re kind of used to it at this point because he made the same threats last summer. We’re not sure if it’s even legal or Constitutional for him to do that, although I’m sure it will result in an increased law enforcement presence, but you know like I said, most of the stuff that we do is completely legal and covered under the First Amendment anyway. We think that the crackdown that will result will probably not affect groups like ours, although it may affect our social media and things like that, but it won’t affect us as much as it will affect every day just regular people who are accused of being our members.”

HOLLER: Right, so now they can declare anybody Antifa and treat them as terrorists.

Atlanta Antifa:  “Yes, exactly, in his supporters already think that they can do that. They’re all saying “you’re going to be dragged off to GTMO,” and having all these fantasies of violent retribution.”

HOLLER:  “We had a courthouse burned here, and they caught a guy who seems to have been involved. There was also a guy in all black right in front of him, and immediately the narrative was “oh he’s Antifa.” Fox Nashville came out and said that with zero proof of it. Meanwhile, he had what looked to be a white supremacist tattoo, and he’s from Nashville and has done other stuff here. When that happens is there any communication among you all to say that he was or wasn’t one of ours? Is there any way to validate or invalidate those kinds of claims?:

Atlanta Antifa:  “Well, we’re all about transparent communication and public service, so if I knew anything about that case that was helpful I would say it, but I don’t.”

HOLLER:  Gotcha, mean I wasn’t expecting that you knew anything about that case, I was Just saying is your group of where that that happened, and is there any communication among you saying does anybody know this guy or has anybody heard of this guy that kind of thing?

Atlanta Antifa:  “No.”

HOLLER:  Is there any desire on the part of Antifa to control the narrative?

Atlanta Antifa:  “We really can’t control the narrative because the nation has gotten so polarized at this point that the right-wing believes what they want to believe, and in many cases the mainstream media is taking their cues from the right. All we can do is just say the truth and hope people will pick up on it. Our business is not to go around avowing or disavowing all these different actions that are taking place this week, we’re just we’re not focused on that.”

HOLLER:  Got it. I think people will be interested to have heard from you, so is there any message that you have either for people who are supporting the feelings black people are having, or for those who are trying to blame you like the president? Is there anything that you want to say?

Atlanta Antifa:  “I think that we have to take care of each other, do a lot of mutual aid, support each other, and listen to each other. But that kind of listening and process it has to start from the bottom up. It can’t go from the top down. We have to listen to the people who are the most hurt, and the most powerless in society, and not go the other direction.”

HOLLER:  All right well I appreciate you doing this and be careful out there.

 

STATE-SPONSORED TRAVEL TO TN “BANNED” IN AT LEAST 1 STATE FOR ANTI-LGBTQ POLICIES

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Even in a deadly pandemic, the Tennessee legislature is already back to discriminating against anti-LGBTQ people.

Well, it turns out hate doesn’t come without cost.

  

It has come to our attention that because of the anti-LGBTQ policies adopted by Tennessee, which you can read about HERE, certain states have BANNED state-sponsored travel to Tennessee.

Here’s what California’s policy says:

In AB 1887, the California Legislature determined that “California must take action to avoid supporting or financing discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people.” (Gov. Code, § 11139.8, subd. (a)(5).) To that end, AB 1887 prohibits a state agency, department, board, or commission from requiring any state employees, officers, or members to travel to a state that, after June 26, 2015, has enacted a law that (1) has the effect of voiding or repealing existing state or local protections against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression; (2) authorizes or requires discrimination against same-sex couples or their families or on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression; or (3) creates an exemption to antidiscrimination laws in order to permit discrimination against same-sex couples or their families or on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. (Gov. Code, § 11139.8, subds. (b)(1), (2).) In addition, the law prohibits California from approving a request for state-funded or state-sponsored travel to such a state. (Gov. Code, § 11139.8, subd. (b)(2).)

The travel prohibition applies to state agencies, departments, boards, authorities, and commissions, including an agency, department, board, authority, or commission of the University of California, the Board of Regents of the University of California, and the California State University. (Gov. Code, § 11139.8, subd. (b).)

The law also requires the Attorney General to develop, maintain, and post on his Internet Web site a current list of states that are subject to the travel ban. (Gov. Code, § 11139.8, subd. (e).)

Here are the states on the banned travel list:

Tennessee is not the only state banned. And we’re not sure how many other states have TN on the list.

We learned about this because the Society for Community Research and Action (SCRA) Biennial Conference was supposed to be hosted by the community programs at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, but California members altered the hosts that they would not be able to attend.

We’re also told it was the policy to allow discrimination by anti-LGBT psychiatrists which triggered the legislation.

We can’t help but wonder how many other events and how much other revenue our state has lost because of its unwillingness to leave intolerance behind.

As a reminder, Governor Bill Lee, who recently signed the anti-LGBT adoption bill, has a sister who is married to a woman.

COMMENTARY: “DOLLAR GENERAL FIRED ME FOR ORGANIZING ESSENTIAL CO-WORKERS”

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The following is commentary from Daniel Stone, who was recently terminated by Dollar General. 

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My name is Daniel Stone. On April 27th I was terminated from my role at Dollar General Corporate for organizing essential coworkers.

This termination came after months of efforts to organize & connect with my fellow coworkers in stores, distribution centers and elsewhere.

As the pandemic began to assert itself across all corners of the economy, I focused intently on how my company would act on behalf of my coworkers. Ultimately, as my emails asking about hazard pay, PPE and more for these coworkers were met with generic corporate responses, myself & others began to act.

We have created a movement of Dollar General workers & that will not end with my termination.

The company tried to silence one voice, but in reality, the voices only get louder.

My actions began in March when I sent emails to Kathy Reardon, the Chief People Officer, asking about the CEO’s COVID-19 video that was emailed to all of us. In those emails, I asked about Paid Sick Leave & more for our fellow associates. Her response was ultimately unhelpful to the plights of the workers, but she did mention her gratitude for Employees like me.

I totally feel that gratitude now.

I continued my efforts, emailing Kathy, but she stopped responding. It became clear to me that the Chief People Officer’s concerns did not include the People in office, store and elsewhere.

I shifted my efforts to Human Resources shortly after that, since I figured that maybe I had a better shot of convincing HR to hear my coworkers grievances and perhaps they could then enact change. That was not the case.

In Mid-March, when Corporate dished out bonuses for white-collar workers, including me, and they were in the thousands while our fellow associates in stores were given bonuses of $300, $200 & $100 (before tax!) it became even clearer — This company will do whatever they need to to protect their rich investors while quite literally sending people to contract this virus, all for breadcrumbs.

One of my emails was to Nichole Wheeler, HR Manager, in which I asked her if Corporate Employees could work in stores on weekends. As I had gone in stores to get groceries for my own household, I had spoken to coworkers about the concerns they shared and decided to ask HR about this possibility.

HR shot that idea down and this was a turning point for me.

Dollar General was comfortable sending workers across the chain in for work everyday during a pandemic, with degrading wages & little to no protection against the virus, but we as corporate workers were not allowed to show solidarity with our coworkers?

It’s shameful.

After other correspondences with Nichole it became evident that the company was not interested in engaging with me & my coworkers. Stories of workers being unable to feed their children, pregnant women scared to work during this virus, hours being cut despite a temporary, laughable, one-dollar raise for Part-Time workers and so many more.

These stories are what led me to engage in protected concerted activity with my coworkers & the support of UFCW 655 in Missouri.

Workers are tired of asking companies for their empathy, now, we demand fairness.

On ~4/13/20, Corporate Employees who were still working in the building, few of which were in mine, could have access to 5 wired masks a week. On ~4/20/20, multiple workers had confirmed that Dollar General was sending them literal t-shirt cutouts as masks.

Across Georgia, Arkansas, Pennsylvania & elsewhere my coworkers were being subjected to this virus, with low pay as it is, and now they’ve been sent T-Shirts to protect themselves and their families? This was insulting, not to mention completely ineffective.

A company making billions in profits, that could afford to pay their executive team nearly $24 million dollar in total compensation in 2019 couldn’t even give workers on the ground the basic respect of a mask.

Eventually, my efforts came to a head on 4/27/20 when I was terminated for what the company cited was bad blood towards the company as well as negative emails.

I’m still not sure how asking about hazard pay, PPE & whether or not corporate workers, who are coworkers with people in stores, can go in in our free time to help, is negative  – but that’s for their conscience to debate, not mine.

Myself & others inside that building know the treatment that our fellow associates are experiencing and for that we organized. At the time of writing this, across all platforms, we have recruited 300+ DG employees to join this movement. From March to my termination in April we reached out to numerous people with the same message of organizing to force Dollar General to recognize our plights.

When one of us is unable to feed our child, we speak up.

When one of us is seeing their hourly wage go from $7.25 to $8.25 but their hours go from 30 to 12, we speak up.

I am hurt to be away from my team at Dollar General, and hope they’re doing well, but myself & others could not sit by while fellow associates are being abused and their bodies being crushed to dust for the good of a company that would replace them tomorrow if they could save a penny.

Workers are tired of asking companies for their empathy. Now, we demand fairness.

In closing, I want to request that if you have spare funds during this pandemic that you give something to a Workers Rights advocacy group, a Union, anything that you feel can advance the cause of Workers Rights. In this country, corporations rely on campaign financing as well as a general Anti-Worker sentiment that we have to change.

Additionally, I want to give a quick shoutout to a few people who have taught me how to organize, how to know what my/others rights are as a worker, and who gave me personally the courage to keep going:

Billy Myers — Organizing Director, UFCW 655

Ashley Bachelder — Interim Co-Director, Workers Dignity/Dignidad Obrera

Vonda McDaniel — President, CLC Nashville Lori — DG Associate/Coworker

Judd Legum — Popular Info

All Coworkers and Associates of Dollar General who continue fighting for the respect, protection & wages they deserve.

Please contact me at [email protected] or DM me on Twitter for any questions.

Thank you for reading.

 

SEC. TRE HARGETT HIT WITH 2ND VOTE-BY-MAIL-FOR-ALL LAWSUIT

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Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett is already being sued by the NAACP & The Equity Alliance, groups seeking safer voting-by-mail for all during a pandemic.

Currently Tennessee only allows those over 60 and people who meet certain requirements to vote absentee.

Now Hargett has been hit with ANOTHER lawsuit at the state level, this time by a bipartisan group of voters, including a pastor.

You can read the lawsuit from Hunter Demster, Earle J. Fisher, Julia Hiltonsmith, Allison Donald, Ginger Bullard, and Jeff Bullard HERE.

Under “Nature of The Suit” it reads:

“Plaintiffs contend that, in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis and the uncertain but growing population distribution of the novel coronavirus (the “Virus”), restricting Tennesseans’ vote-by-mail access to voters over sixty years of age, or who otherwise meet one of the other absentee- ballot qualifications enumerated under Tenn. Code Ann. § 2-6-201, would impose impermissibly burdensome conditions on the Individual Plaintiffs and others’ right to vote under the Tennessee Constitution.

Furthermore, enforcing these restrictions during the pandemic would constitute one or more unlawful classifications of Tennesseans, violating of the Equal Protection Clause of the Tennessee Constitution. In the alternative, Plaintiffs contend that the only constitutionally compliant construction of certain Tennessee statutory language allows for a Tennessee-licensed physician to certify the entire population of a county “medically unable to vote” because of the danger posed by the pandemic.

Plaintiffs’ claims sound strictly under Tennessee state law. They assert no claims arising under or substantially related to federal law.

Tennessee is at the bottom in voter turnout. Hargett was recently torched by a federal judge for his voter registration criminalization bill.

This all reeks of calculated voter suppression. Holler at Hargett to let him know we need vote-by-mail for all:

INTERVIEW: SENATOR BRENDA GILMORE

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Senator Brenda Gilmore joins us to discuss the racial disparities when it comes to the virus, and health care in general.

“All of us as Americans should be ashamed we’ve neglected our communities for so long.”

The Case Against Rep. John Deberry Jr.

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For a long time Tennessee Democrats have been calling for Rep. John Deberry Jr. to have the “D” next to his name removed for consistently siding with Republicans against them on many key issues. This week the Tennessee Democratic Party Executive Committee finally took that action and voted 41-18 with 2 abstentions to do just that.

Many have expressed relief, saying Deberry’s longtime support for the Tennessee Republican agenda has warranted removal for some time. Some have expressed skepticism, saying it should be up to the voters to decide.

Republicans such as Speaker Cameron Sexton have seized on the opportunity to attack Democrats, saying this shows they’re inflexible in their beliefs and calling out TNDP chair Mary Mancini on Twitter.

It’s no surprise Republicans would rush to Deberry’s defense. They’ve regularly expressed gratitude to Deberry for standing with them on their anti-LGBT legislation, their anti-Reproductive rights bills, Governor Bill Lee’s public school-harming vouchers, and Secretary Tre Hargett’s voter registration criminalization bill to name a few.

They’ve even run ads in support of him. (“You tha man”, guys? Really?)

There are so many instances of Deberry standing with Republicans against progressive ideals that it’s hard to keep track – but that’s what we’re here for. Let’s take a trip down memory lane.

On Lee’s public school-harming vouchers, Deberry was the lone Democrat to vote for the bill, which passed 50-48 after a 49-49 tie was held open for 35 minutes while disgraced former speaker Glen Casada (and likely Governor Lee) handed out goodies to convince people to switch, including MILITARY PROMOTIONS.

Eventually, Rep. Jason Zachary flipped, the public school-harming vouchers passed, and the rollout has already been a lie and bribe-filled nightmare, causing even those who voted for it to regret it.

(Of course, that hasn’t stopped Lee from including $41 million for it in the “emergency budget”.)

On Reproductive freedom, Deberry has stood with Republicans repeatedly – even when their bills were unconstitutional, and even when they would force raped teenagers to carry their rapist’s baby to term. Deberry even went so far as to call abortion “BLACK GENOCIDE”, a phrase that will be hard to forget anytime soon.

Even on something as obviously oppressive as Secretary of State Tre Hargett’s voter registration criminalization bill, Deberry couldn’t bring himself to stand on the right side of history. He abstained, a decision which was promptly shown to be cowardly and wrongheaded when a federal judge blocked the law and ripped it apart in a scathing decision.

We spoke with Deberry at length after the fact, and he didn’t seem to understand what the law even did. Which is no excuse.

Then there are Deberry’s anti-LGBT beliefs, which have caused leading voices from the Tennessee LGBT community to speak out forcefully.

Eric Patton of the Human Rights campaign wrote to the TNDP committee before the vote, saying Deberry “consistently stood against women’s rights and LGBTQ rights”, “sponsored a bill to discriminate against LGBTQ youth and adults in matters of mental health”, and “verbally supported conversion therapy”.

Patton concluded:

“As a LGBTQ community leader, it is a clear decision to deny him the party’s support in his re-election. I strongly urge you to take appropriate action to deny his petition.
You have a say, as a party leader, who is allowed to run as a member. DeBerry has displayed time and time again that he has no regard for the party or its platform, let alone the marginalized people it stands to protect.
He shouldn’t get the help of the party. If he’s going to stand against the marginalized, he shouldn’t be standing with us.”

Republicans have been quick to knock Democrats for taking this action, but before you put any faith in the outcry, it’s important to keep in mind Republicans have done things like this before. Speaker Kent Williams was an incumbent removed by the state party. They’ve also kicked people off of ballots for not having the proper “Republican bona fides”.

(Meanwhile They’ve let admitted child sex abuser Rep. David Byrd stay in office, as well as Speaker Casada – who lied and who covered for his “N word”-using coke-snorting chief of staff, said ugly things about women, and may have framed a civil rights activist, and was removed as speaker for it… but those are stories for a different day).

Reproductive freedoms, voting rights, LGBT rights, public schools… these are not minor issues Deberry was standing with Republicans on. And as Mary Mancini said, the majority of Deberry’s campaign donations come from Republican PACs/groups/ individuals. He has a history of making large donations to Republican candidates.

The parties have the right to do these things for a reason. Deberry’s allegiance to the Republican agenda has been a useful political tool for Republicans for long enough.

YARBRO: “I think we should make sure we’re actually adjusting to the emergency at hand.”

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Senator Jeff Yarbro calls for NO-EXCUSE ABSENTEE BALLOTS to let ALL Tennesseans vote by mail ??, rather than Sen. Gardenhire’s (clearly dangerous) bill to bring EVEN MORE PEOPLE TOGETHER.