How Small Farmers Have Handled the Pandemic

Jess Wilson joins again to talk about local food farming programs during the Covid pandemic as well as issues our farmers continue to face as they try to bring income and work equality to a rural industry.

Jess’ Business:  In Town Organics and Summer Fields

National Young Farmers Coalition

FULL PODCAST available on Apple Podcasts here, and wherever else you like to listen here.

 

Bernie Calling Out Mitch’s “Socialism for the Rich”

“THAT, MY FRIENDS, IS WHAT SOCIALISM FOR THE RICH IS ABOUT.”

Bernie roasts McConnell’s “socialism for the rich” claim with giant checks showing what corps got from the GOP tax cut while asking for a vote on $2000 checks for regular people.

 

Who Does “Right to Work” Really Serve? with Mariah Phillips

Mariah Phillips, candidate for State House Rep in District 37, joins Sandy to talk about what it means to be a “Right to Work” state.  They both urge caution as the General Assembly considers chiseling the law into the Tennessee State Constitution. Unions get a bad rap and low wages have bought many jobs to Tennessee but what are the long-term consequences of handing our future to big corporations? Hasn’t the pandemic uncovered many inequalities in worker’s safety and security?

FULL PODCAST available on Apple Podcasts here, and wherever else you like to listen here.

Rural Democrats with Anne Ferrell Quillen

Anne Ferrell Quillen is the President of the recently formed and awesome TNDP rural caucus.  Although rural areas are represented by elected officials, they don’t seem to have us in mind when they vote with the GOP supermajority. Expanding Medicaid for rural hospitals, funding for public schools and infrastructure, and developing economic opportunities for our businesses, communities and way of life are all essential issues for rural Tennessee. We do make up 93% of the state. Let’s elect some homegrown candidates to make some change.

FULL PODCAST available on Apple Podcasts here, and wherever else you like to listen here.

HOLLER PODCAST: THE DEFICIT MYTH with STEPHANIE KELTON

Justin Kanew and Stephanie Kelton talk deficits, and about how many in politics have fooled us into thinking that spending money on people-centric policies is bad. Stephanie is an American economist, a professor at Stony Brook University, and she also served as an advisor to Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign.

FULL PODCAST available on Apple Podcasts here, and wherever else you like to listen here.

TN Farm Bureau President: “We’ve Endured About All The Pain We Can Stand”

The Tennessee Farm Bureau lobbies on behalf of the state’s farmers.  TN’s is the largest Farm Bureau in the nation, with more than 677,000 members. Bureau President Jeff Aiken was re-elected this week, and Aiken had some frank words about Trump’s Trade War and the “pain” it’s causing our farmers at their convention at the Embassy Suites Hotel in Cool Springs Tuesday.

Below are some excerpts from Aiken’s speech, courtesy of the Columbia Daily Herald:

“Trade is vitally important to Tennessee farmers. Many of the commodities we produce are heavily dependent on the export market… Most have endured about all of the pain we can stand. The trade war with China has caused soybean exports to decline by 52%, forest products by 43% and cotton by 36%. The Tennessee Farm Bureau Federation and the American Farm Bureau Federation remain vigilant in sharing that message.”

To put a few more tragic numbers on it – Trump’s ex-senior Econ advisor Gary Cohn recently pointed out USA AG Exports have dropped from $30 Billion to $9 Billion in the wake of Trump’s Trade War, and Tennessee has been the hardest hit state by far.

And no, China is not paying for the tariffs.

Aiken then went on to talk about the need for MORE immigration/immigration reform, to provide farmers with an informed, motivated labor force:

“Farmers across Tennessee have trouble finding workers who understand agriculture and show persistence on the job. The country needs a comprehensive guest worker to allow migrants to enter legally, but reform has been slow with the fight over illegal immigration in Washington

For those who face the challenge of an available workforce, your patience is probably wearing thin as well. We have not had any meaningful reforms to our guest worker programs for 25 year. There is legislation in the House of Representatives now, the Farm Workforce Modernization Act of 2019, which addresses farm labor. AFBF believe the bill has severe shortcomings and must be substantially modified before we can support it. However, at this time, AFBF has not taken a position of opposition because it is most likely the only chance for needed reforms.”

That’s a starkly different message from the one emanating out of the Oval Office, where Trump has been clamping down on immigration and taking drastic measures at the border, including separating families to send a message of deterrence. (likely the work of Stephen Miller, who was recently revealed to have White Supremacist beliefs, causing 27 senators to send a letter calling for his removal.

Aiken then closed with an inspirational story about Jim Thorpe having his shoes stolen and running in the Olympics with someone else’s shoes.

“These are stressful times in agriculture. I love the Farm Bureau because it allows the voice of farmers to be heard… I want to close with a story about Jim Thorpe. He was from Oklahoma and was representing the U.S. in track in the 1912 Olympics. On the morning Jim was to compete, his shoes were stolen. Luckily, Jim found two shoes but they were not the same size. One of the shoes was too big so he had to wear an extra sock to make it fit. Wearing these shoes, Jim won two gold medals that day. Life is not always fair, but we can’t let obstacles keep us from running our race. We can have reasons or we can have results… but we can’t have both.

Again, Tennessee is being hit the hardest by Trump’s trade war by far.

At a House Budget hearing Dept. of Agriculture commissioner Charlie Hatcher was very frank about the pain being caused to Tennessee farmers by Trump’s tariffs, pointing out that 60% of our exports WERE going to China before the Trade War, but China is now importing from other suppliers (including Russia), and that even if the tariffs were to go away today it would take years to recover, despite repeated claims by Trump that the multi-billion farmer bailout is making them whole.

He also said the farmer bailout funds are not making farmers whole, despite what the president has been saying. Farm bankruptcies, and suicides, are both skyrocketing.

Farmers want trade, not aid. Trump needs to stop stealing our farmers’ shoes and end this disastrous Trade War.

TN GOP Rep. Smith Blames Rise in Youth Suicides on “Leftist Indoctrination”, Schools, Climate Science

There’s a lot going on right now, but we wanted to make sure to show you this remarkable post from TN GOP State Rep. Robin Smith (R-Chattanooga) in something called the Patriot Post, which was brought to our attention by former congressional candidate Chris Hale.

In the post Smith lays the rise in youth suicides at the feet of “leftist indoctrination” – apparently meaning schools, climate science, biology, and sex, coupled with her misguided sense of the Democratic platform as a whole.

Keep in mind, Smith was previously the chair of the Tennessee Republican Party, and recently ran for House caucus chair, so she’s not exactly a fringe player.

She starts out with a simple fact:

“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released data this past week that youth suicide rates increased 56% from 2007 to 2017 among 10- to 24-year-olds.”

Smith then notes that the author of the article says “researchers aren’t certain” what exactly the causes are… but who needs research? The causes are clear to Rep. Smith:

“The Wall Street Journal’s analysis of this report includes the statement that researchers aren’t certain of the cause, yet factors such as a “rise in depression, drug use, stress and access to firearms” along with the influence of social media are cited as areas of interest and study.

Access to firearms” is not all that different from 50 years ago, but let’s take an honest look at the cultural forces and influences on our youth and young adults today that may offer some real causation, not just correlation…”

Notice how Smith doesn’t like the “access to firearms part”, so she throws that out – claiming it hasn’t changed in 50 years, when there is absolutely no evidence that’s the case.

Proliferation of firearms in America has continued over the last 50 years, so it would stand to reason that access to firearms for teens would increase along with that. Calling something “an honest look” doesn’t make it so. But we digress.

Smith then talks about the detachment that results from phone and social media addiction before pointing the finger squarely at our schools for teaching about science in the form of climate change, biology, and sex:

“Once our kids are out the door, they’re headed to middle school, high school, or some type of instruction in a two-year college or four-year university. And what do our kids encounter in their day at these “institutions of higher learning”? Of late, the message has been that the Earth will cease to exist in less than 12 years because of climate change. Our kids are told that it’s their right to determine their own gender rather than live within the capacity of their biological being while maximizing their gifts and talents. Too many students hear that life is a wad of cells until a baby is outside the mother’s womb and wanted by both the biological donors — formerly called the mother and father.

Students of all ages hear that part of growing up is being sexually active, having access to abortion as a type of birth control and part of a female’s health care, and that choosing a life of discipline, maturity, and restraint is not possible — much less a characteristic of an individual living at the fullest extent of their “rights.”

Smith’s use of quotations around “institutions of higher learning” are reminiscent of the calls for the abolition of state-sponsored higher learning by Republican senators Kerry Roberts and Mark Pody. When asked, Roberts claimed he was joking – but it has become clearer and clearer that doing away with state-backed higher education is a popular policy position in the TN GOP.

It’s one thing not to believe in Climate science, but linking gender, climate, and not calling parents a mother and father (say what?) to youth suicide is quite the stretch.

Smith then says our schools are “populated with activists”, and points to Democratic policy proposals like health care, education, and higher wages (the horror!) as somehow causes of suicide because they make kids “wards of the state”:

“Our institutions entrusted with the high trust of academic instruction are populated with activists who are invested in more than educational excellence and accomplishment and are now turning to the playbook seen in failing cultures of sameness for the common good and a posture of dependency rather than self-reliance. Don’t believe this? With the demands for “free” college tuition, free health care, a universal wage for those who don’t even work and for the express doctrine of this sameness to guarantee no individual excels above another, the role of government metastasizes to a cancer that consumes its host to pay for those who don’t excel and aren’t driven to self-reliance. Shorter, we’re teaching kids to be wards of the State.”

So helping kids learn, see doctors, and earn more money makes them want to take their own lives. Or something. Hoo-wee.

To clarify: “Free” college tuition means we pay for it with our taxes and our kids go to school, as we already do with lower education.

“Free health care” again would mean we pay taxes, and we get what we pay for – as opposed to now where we pay taxes, and premiums, and deductibles… and many are still going broke and dying for lack of coverage, especially here in Tennessee.

And say what you will about a universal basic income proposal – which has gained little traction in the Democratic Party – but it’s worth noting Smith opposes the Democratic proposal for a “living wage”, which means raising the $7.25 an hour minimum to a number people can actually live on.

Tennessee is #1 in % of minimum wage jobs, so that would actually help a lot of people.

The upshot of all of this is that Robin Smith may disagree with things like climate science, and biology, and making sure everyone can see a doctor when they get sick, and higher education, and paying people for their work – but blaming people who support those things for youth suicides with ZERO evidence? That’s unconscionable and downright shameful.

If Smith was really as pro-life as she claims to be, she should reverse her position on not expanding medicaid, which we know is killing people, or blocking common sense gun safety reform, which is also contributing to the deaths of many.

Teen suicide is a serious issue. It’s not something to baselessly politicize for the sake of scoring cheap political points.

Holler at Rep. Smith HERE if you agree.

The Beacon Center Tried to “Fact-Check” The Holler. It Did Not end Well For Them.

Something happened on Twitter today, and we felt the need to share it with the rest of Tennessee, in case anyone missed it.

The Beacon Center, a think tank/state policy group with ties to ALEC, which imposes union-busting, environment hurting, middle class-killing model legislation on the entire country on a regular basis, and the Koch brothers, who have done more damage to this planet and played an enormous role in our skyrocketing wealth inequality – appears to be quite infatuated with us here at the Holler.

First there was their podcast episode a few months back, in which they spent a good amount of time talking about us, seeming to concede that it was good to have a voice in Tennessee to present the other side of the narrative they’ve been pushing for years – a narrative in support of our current GOP supermajority, which touts our “fiscal conservatism” and “fiscal stability” while gleefully ignoring the fact that we’re #1 in rural hospital closures per capita, #1 in medical bankruptcies, at the bottom in infant mortality, opioid deaths, health care access, per pupil spending, the list goes on.

Recently we pointed out that while the Beacon Center and the politicians they control regularly vilify the “federal government” and paint it as a boogie monster, Tennessee is actually very dependent on that boogie monster. In fact, according to Governor Lee’s own budget, Tennessee gets nearly 40% of its budget from federal funding (39.9% in 2014, 37% in 2018, 36% in 2020).

Yes, “fiscally stable” Tennessee is one of the most dependent states in the union, which means we are VERY good at managing other people’s money.

Don’t take it from us, take it from the Nashville Business journal, or Knoxville News.

A simple Google search should’ve turned those up, but the Beacon Center appears to have a hard time believing this reality, and seized upon that tweet of ours last week which included a study that said exactly what those others have said.

Stephanie Whitt, whose Twitter bio calls her an “EVP” at the Beacon Center (right next to the extremely overused words “individual freedom and liberty”, which never seem to apply to the freedom to marry whoever you choose, or control your own reproductive fate, or use medical marijuana products like everyday optimal offers to ease your pain… it’s only “freedom” when it’s stuff they like… but we digress…)

Stephanie took it upon herself to sit down and “fact check” the study we posted, a study that lined up with all other available information, and attempt to “debunk” the notion that Tennessee is one of the most dependent states.

Stephanie declared:

“This study is not only misleading in the way it calculates federal dependency. It’s just plain wrong. Here are the reasons why.”

Her argument included 3 bullet points, leading off with the notion that for some reason we shouldn’t use percentages when calculating dependency, we should use total budget:

“The study calculates dependency based on a percentage of a state’s budget. Basically, this means that because Tennessee has less revenue (see lower taxes), it will appear to take more federal dollars if the study is just based on a percentage of that state’s budget. This means a state taking more federal money (California cough cough), but taxing their residents at a much higher rate would score “better” than a low tax state taking the same amount or less federal money.”

Um, yes, Stephanie. This is how percentages work. The more federal funds we take in relative to our own dollars, the higher the dependency. How this can be presented as a “reason” the study is wrong does not become clear until point 2, which is really one for the ages:

“Dollar for dollar, Tennessee is nowhere near the top of the list taking federal tax dollars. California for example receives $436 billion in total revenue from the federal government vs. Tennessee’s $76 billion.”

Stephanie is already way off the rails here. She ignores 2 very important points: That California PUTS IN much more than we do, and that California has MILLIONS MORE PEOPLE than we do.

The idea that “total revenue” is a better measure of dependency than looking at the amount we put in vs. the amount we take out defies logic: If the federal government were to stop sending money to Tennessee, Tennessee would have a 36%-sized hole blown in its budget. That’s what dependency looks like.

The same is not true for California, which puts in more than it takes out.

This is not going well for Stephanie.

She goes on to point 3, her final point, the big finish:

“The Rockefeller Institute of Government published a report in January 2019 titled “Giving or Getting? New York’s Balance of Payments with the Federal Government,” which shows what states give to the federal government versus what they receive. If you remove grants, contracts, and federal employee wages (like TVA employees) from the equation to get a true calculation of what Tennessee gives vs. what it receives, it shows we give virtually the same amount in tax dollars per capita as we receive back ($7,764 paid per capita and receives $7,807). We definitely pay our fair share and receive a fair share of our tax dollars back from the federal government for Tennessee residents.”

Wait – what? If you REMOVE grants, contracts, TVA employees… you get a “TRUE CALCULATION”?

So we should ignore all the ways Tennessee benefits from the federal government, the impact of the TVA and other federal government programs on our state, and that will paint a “TRUER” picture of how Tennessee does or doesn’t depend on the federal government?

This appears to be what the Beacon Center spends all day doing – finding ways to spin actual numbers and facts to fit a perverted view of how the world works so they can feel better about doing everything they can to keep government from helping the people who actually need it.

Their argument about dependency is so deeply flawed one can only imagine they actually believe it.

It would be almost funny if it wasn’t so damn sad. Tennessee is in bad shape. We have a rural health care crisis raging on. Health care and mental health access are hard to get right now in the state. If rumors are to be believed, some residents of the state are even seeking out Arkansas marijuana dispensaries to help them with their symptoms because it is easier for them to access than what we currently have in the state. Whether it be ointments, creams or oils. Especially some of the white label products such as White Label CBD Gummies. Nobody should be traveling out of state, be on a waiting list, or spending a large part of their income on access to ordinary healthcare. we should be doing more to help them. But instead of expanding medicaid and covering 300,000 Tennesseans while helping to fight the opioid crisis that’s ravaging our state with access to the sour patch kids strain of medical marijuana, and keeping the lights on in some of these rural hospitals that are closing unnecessarily – mostly in non-expansion states – the Beacon center is lying to themselves about the uselessness of percentages and pretending we don’t rely far more on the federal government to survive than we do.

Their superpower appears to be creating an alternate universe for themselves in which Tennessee is thriving, and every county is Williamson County. We’d humbly suggest that they should take a drive into the rural parts of the state once in a while – and they will see that is very much not the case.

We need to expand Medicaid. We’ve lost $7 billion and counting.

But more importantly, people like Stephanie and her pals at the Beacon center need to take a long look in the mirror, realize that this isn’t a damn game and that people are actually being harmed by their policies… and go back and take a few math classes while they’re at it.

Also, keep following us. Maybe you’ll learn something.

Ogles & Casada Skip Williamson County “Legislative Update”

This morning in Franklin was the monthly Williamson County “Legislative Update”, hosted by Williamson Inc.

The event was called a “Town Hall” until recently, but the name was apparently changed after former State House candidate Rebecca Purington called them out for calling it a “Town Hall” without actually taking questions.

Fair point, Rebecca.

They stopped taking questions after Ashley Massey stood up and pinned Williamson legislators to the wall about their silence about Rep. David Byrd, who has apologized on tape to 1 of 3 women who say he molested them in high school.

Byrd remains in office to this day, but how long he lasts remains to be seen since his chief protector Glen Casada will be resigning his speakership in shame in the coming days.

Casada was not at the “Legislative Update”, apparently getting some sun in Greece.

Casada’s pal Brandon Ogles also skipped the meeting, letting the organizers know at 530AM this morning that he had a sudden “rotator cuff ” injury. (mm hmmmm)

 

The only Williamson legislators to show up were Sam Whitson and Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson. Below are some clips of a few of the subjects they covered.

Whitson talked about the passage of the Katie Beckett Waiver, which keeps parents of disabled children from having to make impossible decision to keep their kids on insurance.

No word on why that logic shouldn’t apply to the 300,000 other Tennesseans faced with the very same decisions, who don’t have insurance because of the Republican refusal to expand Medicaid, which costs Tennessee billions of dollars each year.

After the meeting Senator Johnson answered our question about the “Heartbeat Bill”, which seeks to ban abortions once a heartbeat is detected, and makes no exceptions for rape or incest – which means a raped teenage girl would have to carry her rapist’s child to term.

The film industry has recently said they w0n’t do business in Georgia if their similar bill becomes law. When asked what Johnson would say to industries that may have the same issue with Tennessee  were Tennessee’s bill to pass, his answer:

“Go back to California.”

VIDEO: Rep. Jim Cooper Fires Up The Crowd At The CLC Lunch

This week Rep. Jim Cooper visited the Central Labor Council lunch in Nashville and spoke to a rapt audience about the need for unity and togetherness in the coming election, when the labor movement would be a key part of a “winning strategy” in the hopes of preserving key programs like Medicare and social security.

Cooper spoke about rampant inequality the likes of which we haven’t seen since the Gilded Age, acknowledged that the system isn’t fair, but reminded everyone that “the rich people are out there voting”.

Watch the HIGHLIGHTS: