REP. TORREY HARRIS ON LOSING HIS DISTRICT TO GOP REDISTRICTING | TN Holler
Rep Torrey Harris, the first out LGBT black legislator in Memphis, and one of the youngest, shares his thoughts on likely losing his district to redistricting.
Rep Torrey Harris, the first out LGBT black legislator in Memphis, and one of the youngest, shares his thoughts on likely losing his district to redistricting.
WATCH: “FILTERING HISTORY IS MUCH MORE DESTRUCTIVE TO OUR GROWING MINDS.” As radical Moms For Liberty and board member Rhonda Thurman force Hamilton County Schools to create a committee to censor library books (to censor MLK, other black authors) — A WISE 5TH GRADER PUSHES BACK.
❤️ 📚 WATCH: “FILTERING HISTORY IS MUCH MORE DESTRUCTIVE TO OUR GROWING MINDS.”
As radical @Moms4Liberty and board member Rhonda Thurman force @hamcoschools to create a committee to censor library books (to censor MLK, other black authors) — A WISE 5TH GRADER PUSHES BACK.🙏🏽💪🏼 pic.twitter.com/F11PT9qA8C
— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) December 10, 2021
WATCH: “RACISM IS PRESENT IN THIS BOARDROOM, AND ON THIS CAMPUS.”
🔥WATCH: “RACISM IS PRESENT IN THIS BOARDROOM, AND ON THIS CAMPUS.” @DarrellSFreeman, the 1 black @MTSU trustees board member, says he “cannot stay silent” — and puts his💰where his mouth is to fight racial inequities as he unleashes hard truths.
FULL: https://t.co/IK2GBcKt7K pic.twitter.com/h0N4iqfT4i
— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) December 13, 2021
|
|
Someone had to fact-check Marsha’s latest senate floor ramblings. We volunteer.
NEW: “MARSHA, FACT-CHECKED”
Someone had to fact-check @MarshaBlackburn’s latest senate floor ramblings. We volunteer. 👋🏽 pic.twitter.com/Ne533yAyJO
— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) December 2, 2021
Governor Bill Lee has just appointed Jordan Mollenhour of Knoxville to the State Board of Education, the governing and policy-making body for Tennessee’s Pre-K-12 public education system – which through partnership with the TN Department of Education maintains oversight in K-12 implementation and academic standards.
According to Knox TN Today:
“Mollenhour is co-CEO of Mollenhour Gross LLC, an investment company based in Knoxville. He will represent the Second Congressional District… Mollenhour’s term of service is for five years….”
What the article does not mention is Mollenhour’s very concerning history as an online ammunition dealer, owning an online company with an obscure ownership trail that according to the St. Louis Dispatch sold thousands of bullets to at least one mass shooter.
In a 2014 article called “HOW THE AURORA SHOOTER GOT HIS AMMO” by Todd Frankel, then of the St. Louis Dispatch, Frankel follows the trail of the sale of the bullets used in the murder of 12 people and the injuring of 58 others in an Aurora, Colorado movie theater all the way to Knoxville, and then on to Atlanta.
The article reads:
“The answer appeared to be an online company in St. Louis… but the trail leads not to St. Louis but to Knoxville, TN, and on to Atlanta, to a secretive company considered to be among the nation’s top online ammunition dealers. It’s founders – a pair of former real estate developers – sell bullets using far-flung P.O. Boxes, different corporate entities, and online marketing tactics that have offended even some firearm enthusiasts. By last summer, these entrepreneurs stood perfectly positioned to close on a quick, legal sale to a deranged killer.”
Those “former real estate developers” were Jordan Mollenhour and his partner Dustin Gross. Both are University of Tennessee graduates. Governor Lee has just appointed Mollenhour to the Board of Education.
According to the article, their company was called www.BulkAmmo.com, and operated under the names www.luckygunner.com, www.ammoforsale.com, and others. In the article Frankel tracks their web of corporations and business names to a distributor in Atlanta, but he’s never able to contact them for comment.
Frankel also summarizes the history of the ammo business in America, pointing out that it wasn’t always possible to order thousands of bullets online and have them show up to your door no questions asked, but that a piece of legislation in 1986 changed it so that they could.
Maybe Chris Rock is right – If gun control is impossible to pass in our messed up, gun-sick nation – maybe restricting the ammo is what we should be focusing on? But in the meantime it seems fair to ask why Governor Lee is appointing someone with a sordid past that includes enabling at least one mass shooting in Colorado to a board of education overseeing what our kids learn.
Selling thousands of bullets online to a mass killer wasn’t illegal, but it probably should be, and at the very least we shouldn’t be putting people who think it’s ok to make a living doing that in charge of our children’s education.
It’s worth noting that this isn’t Lee’s only questionable education appointment – Lee and Speaker Sexton just also recently appointed anti-Muslim 9/11 Truther Laurie Cardoza-Moore to the textbook commission.
Extremism at the highest levels of Tennessee’s government is on full display. And it’s our kids who will suffer.
WATCH: “Did you think you’d get this far being a 9/11 TRUTHER and as ANTI-MUSLIM as you are? What’s the MASTER PLAN, Laurie?”
We questioned Speaker @CSexton25’s bigoted textbook commission pick @cardozamoore before a misinformed @TNHighwayPatrol trooper stopped us for no reason. pic.twitter.com/1R81whJwF0
— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) April 10, 2021
Last night we learned the STEM PREP boys & girls basketball teams left their games against Smyrna High after a referee allegedly used the “N Word” towards one of the female players.
The student was not the only one who heard it. Her grandmother did too, and she promptly recorded herself on Facebook reacting emotionally to the racist referee’s actions:
WATCH: “The REF called my granddaughter a ‘LITTLE NIG*ER’… PREJUDICE IS ALIVE AND WELL IN SMYRNA, TENNESSEE.” @STEMPREP boys & girls hoops teams WALKED OUT of games against @smyrnaathletics @SmyrnaBball due to a racist @tssaa ref. 🏀 😳
615-889-6740 [email protected] pic.twitter.com/VP6KWhtGhg
— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) November 18, 2021
We called TSSAA, the organization responsible for staffing high school games with officials throughout Tennessee. They’re based in Hermitage.
Gene Menees, Assistant Executive Director, called us back. This is how our conversation went.
HOLLER: Can you shine any light on what happened? Will the ref still be reffing games? Does the TSSAA have a statement?
MENEES: We’re investigating.
HOLLER: Ok. And if the ref did use the N word towards a player, what would the outcome potentially be?
MENEES: We’re looking into it and we’re investigating.
HOLLER: Theoretically, would you still allow them to referee games?
MENEES: I can’t answer that question because it’s an allegation. We’re investigating into the allegation.
HOLLER: I understand, but it seems like people would be interested to know what the TSSAA’s policy is towards a ref using that word in general.
MENEES: Well, let’s reverse it. We will deal with an official obviously if the official used a racial slur. Just as an administration of a school, I would assume, would deal with it if a player used a racial slur directed towards an opponent. Or fans used a racial slur directed towards a player. So if an official used a racial slur, we would certainly deal with that official.
HOLLER: In what way would you deal with them?
MENEES: We would deal with them. We’re investigating.
HOLLER: Right, but would you suspend them? Fire them?
MENEES: We would look into it. We would talk. We would meet and make a decision.
HOLLER: So it’s not a zero tolerance policy?
MENEES: I didn’t say that. I said we would look into it, and if it was verified we would deal with the official and take care of the situation.
HOLLER: What does that mean? Is there a world where a ref can use the N Word towards a player and still ref games for TSSAA?
MENEES: I didn’t say that. You said it.
HOLLER: I’m asking.
MENEES: I’m gonna be honest with you – we’ve never dealt with this before. We’ve had allegations before, but the allegations have never been confirmed… we’re not an organization that’s going to tolerate racial slurs. So if it’s confirmed we would deal with it.
HOLLER: And what’s the process for confirming? Are you talking to the refs? Players? Fans? Who are you talking to?
MENEES: We’re an association of schools. I’ve been in touch with STEM Academy, Smyrna, and the officials.
HOLLER: And when you make your decision, do you have a sense of a time frame?
MENEES: We’ll look into it, get the reports in, we’ll talk to STEM. There were other situations that occurred in the game as well. So we’ve gotta work through all that. This is is one of the things involved in that game that we’re working through?
HOLLER: What other things were involved?
MENEES: We had 2 players ejected. We had a fan that came on the floor. We’ve got policies in place for that as well. We’ve gotta deal with the entire situation that occurred at Smyrna. The racial slur is one of the things we’ve got to deal with, obviously. But it’s not the only thing.
HOLLER: Have you had any issues with that referee in the past?
MENEES: What referee?
HOLLER: The one that allegedly used the racial slur?
MENEES: Who allegedly said it? I’ve never been given a name? Which name do you have?
HOLLER: How are you investigating if you don’t even know who we’re talking about.
MENEES: I’ve not been given a name. Nobody has given me a name of the official who allegedly made the racial slur.
HOLLER: Do you know who was assigned to that game?
MENEES: There was a crew of officials.
HOLLER: There were 3. How would you go about figuring out which ref it was?
At this point Menees goes on telling us a story about when he was a high school football player in Kingsport and got ejected for using profanity, but says there was no tape with audio to prove it.
HOLLER: So because there may not be video of this happening, it might end up being just what people heard vs. what the ref says happened, what happens in that scenario?
MENEES: That’s what we’re investigating. We’re looking into it. And once we get the reports in we’ll take a look at it and make a decision.
HOLLER: You said you talked to STEM and Smyrna. Is there a crew chief?
MENEES: There’s always an R on the game.
HOLLER: Well I guess figuring out who the ref is would be the first step, right?
MENEES: We’ll talk to the officials, talk to STEM, talk to Smyrna… let’s be fair. It’s an allegation. Right? Let’s be fair.
HOLLER: It’s allegation, but multiple people have told us they heard it.
MENEES: I understand. But momentarily, let’s be fair. Multiple people didn’t hear it.
HOLLER: They did. I’m happy to send you a video. We have a video of a grandmother who heard it. It was her granddaughter that was called it.
MENEES: We’ll hear the racial slur on the video? That’s what you’re saying?
HOLLER: No. You’ll hear a grandmother saying she was right there and heard it.
MENEES: The video will prove someone said it, correct?
HOLLER: No. The video will prove more than one person heard it. And so I guess at that point what you’re saying is unless a racial slur gets caught on camera…
MENEES: No, I didn’t say that. I didn’t say it didn’t happen… If we get a video… I’ll go back to the football example…
Here he goes back to the story getting thrown out for profanity and there not being video of it to prove it, and a coach denying it.
We then asked him what a time frame would be for making their decision, and he told us schools and people are busy and wouldn’t commit to anything specific.
The thing to remember here is both teams forfeited, so clearly the teams were convinced that this happened. But Menees certainly gave the impression that without video of the incident this could potentially get treated as nothing more than an allegation.
We’d also add that this tweet by Smyrna basketball mentioning the forfeit without explaining the context seemed highly inappropriate, and appears to have been deleted.
Here’s hoping TSSAA does the right thing. Their contact info, should you feel like hollering at them: 615-889-6740 [email protected]
And as always, film everything.
|
|
Even though the VA governor race has gone opposite the president basically every time historically, everyone seems to have their own hot take about why the Democrats lost in Virginia, a need to treat the race as a bellwether for the impending doom of the Democratic party.
Some are blaming it on progressives, saying Biden is overreaching with his Build Back Better agenda (despite the fact that everything in it is extremely popular).
Others are saying it’s the gridlock that had Biden’s popular budget and the infrastructure package stuck in gear (and gutted) that caused people to sour on the Dems.
And then there’s the schools issue.
Glenn Youngkin seized on a big misstep by Terry Mcauliffe in the closing weeks of the race where he said:
“I’m not going to let parents come into schools, and actually take books out, and make their own decision.”
Republicans seized on the quote as Mcauliffe saying parents should have “no role” in public schools, which is something no candidate is arguing for or running on.
Those who want the truth taught, believe masks keep kids safe, and who insist Critical Race Theory is not being taught are not saying parents have “no place” in schools. School boards were elected by parents to make many of those decisions, and parental involvement is obviously an important key to a child’s education.
Youngkin seizing on that unfortunate Mcauliffe quote was fair play. His closing ads that insisted Mcauliffe was lying about CRT being taught in schools, however, were not. The slides Youngkin featured in those ads were not from a Virginia public schools curriculum, but were instead from a presentation given to adults about student discipline – according to the woman whose presentation it was, and who was horrified by Youngkin’s tactics.
Never one to let facts to get in the way of a good story, that didn’t matter to Youngkin. He featured them anyway, which led to many Virginians pointing to CRT in schools as their main issue in the election even when they couldn’t tell you what CRT actually is.
Q: “What’s the most important issue in this Virginia Governor’s race?”
VOTER: “Teaching Critical Race Theory to our children.”
Q: “And what is CRT?”
VOTER: “…I don’t have that much knowledge on it.” 🤔🙁pic.twitter.com/36MWISgHnN
— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) November 1, 2021
Whether or not you believe the CRT lie turned the election, one thing is clear: Republicans are going to make public schools an issue throughout the country in future elections.
And they’re finding sympathy for their causes in some unlikely places – the bluest cities in America.
There’s now no shortage of think pieces about how school issues in places like New York City and San Francisco where people believe the push for equity and inclusion have gone too far have laid the groundwork for the conflicts we’re seeing in places like Virginia – as though the discussions surrounding public schools in these very different places are somehow even remotely the same.
But they are not.
In Tennessee for instance, the fights at school board meetings are about refusing to mask children, banning books, and not even letting teachers talk about race, which is essentially the bill Tennessee legislators just proudly passed.
Notably, that anti-CRT bill didn’t even mention CRT, but instead basically banned teachers from putting history in the context of race.
CBS: “Was CRT actually taught in Tennessee public schools?”
SENATOR @campbelltn20: “No.”
CBS: “How do you ban something that doesn’t exist?”
CAMPBELL: “Good question.”🎯 It’s the “chilling effect” on our teachers. FULL STORY: https://t.co/yQ1InSgpvS pic.twitter.com/7y7BFJfJ6W
— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) November 4, 2021
The state legislature is also banning the ability of teachers to even mention LGBT people, and passing bills that threaten heavy fines if teachers teach the truth about our history, instead insisting that they both-sides things like the Civil War (while they fight to keep KKK Grand Wizard statues in our capitol and refuse to acknowledge that the Civil War was fought over slavery).
WATCH: “THIS WOULD ELIMINATE ME” @TorreyHarris901 (D-Memphis) & @EddieMannis (R-Knoxville) – the 2 out LGBT reps – push back on Griffey & the @TNGOP’s ANTI-LGBT TEXTBOOK BAN.
It passed committee 8-7 (YES VOTES: cepicky,griffey,haston,hicks,sparks, warner,moody,weaver) 🏳️🌈 pic.twitter.com/y2qBxDiBFg
— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) April 7, 2021
This is all against a backdrop of having Governor Bill Lee as our governor, who has made “school choice” and private school vouchers his #1 priority, getting them passed through “bribes and threats” according to members of his own party before they were struck down by a federal judge.
FLASHBACK: @NC5PhilWilliams is reporting the FBI is looking into disgraced ex-speaker @GlenCasada and bribery related to @GovBillLee’s private school vouchers scheme, so here’s a reminder that REPUBLICAN Rep. Calfee said “BRIBES AND THREATS” were used👇🏽pic.twitter.com/qUSJXOdtaM
— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) February 26, 2021
Yet he’s still trying.
Lee even had Trump Secretary of Education Betsy Devos come to town to help him push the vouchers through. Devos once revealed on a Christian radio show that her agenda was to steer public funds to private Christian schools to “Advance God’s Kingdom” – a goal Governor Lee very much seems to share.
Steering funds away from our public schools is especially problematic considering we’re already #46 in the nation in per pupil spending. We have BILLIONS in our “rainy day fund”, we just awarded $900 MILLION to Ford for a new plant in West Tennessee… yet when it comes to our kids and paying our teachers properly, it’s pockets empty.
That’s the backdrop for the school board fights in Southern states like ours. It isn’t about renaming a school away from a founding father to be more politically correct here, or about whether or not there’s a more racially equitable way we can teach math.
It’s about DEFUNDING PUBLIC EDUCATION.
It’s worth noting the chair of Moms For Liberty in Williamson County doesn’t even have her kids in public schools (Lee doesn’t either), openly says we shouldn’t teach the truth, and has called public school teachers “brainwashing assholes”. Governor Lee once told a woman at a town hall he agreed people without kids in schools should have the option not to pay for them.
So when Virginia makes headlines, and moderate Democrats who otherwise believe in public schools and want to fix them start to see those Republicans as brothers and sisters-in-arms in a war against progressives, they need to realize the fight they’re fighting is a MUCH DIFFERENT FIGHT than the fight those Republicans they sympathize with are fighting, and that tying the two together ultimately runs cover for people who are hellbent on destroying public education.
As we move towards a more equitable and inclusive country, and public schools more and more become the center of the discussion, there may be things some think go too far – but please think twice before making common cause with those who don’t want to fix public schools, but instead would prefer they, and government-backed anything, go away completely – which would inevitably hurt those with the least, the most.
Public education is a bedrock of our American democracy. It isn’t perfect, but we need it. Let’s fix it and defend it, not attack it and defund it.
Justin Kanew is the founder of the Tennessee Holler. Subscribe & Support HERE.
Tennessee Republican congressman Rep. Mark Green (TN-7) is a radical extremist well known for “leading the fight” against Medicaid expansion in Tennessee, keeping 300,000 uninsured while saying programs like Medicaid “Keep people from a saving knowledge of God”.
“Dr.” Mark Green helped block Medicaid expansion in TN while saying government programs “keep people from a saving knowledge of God” – he doesn’t care about stopping the violence. The suffering of others just brings them closer to God in his eyes: pic.twitter.com/wxxzGWbc2q https://t.co/9nos2pusYk
— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) April 9, 2021
He’s also a former U.S. Army flight surgeon who was nominated for army secretary by Trump but couldn’t even get a hearing from a Republican-controlled senate, possibly because of his hateful anti-LGBT views and comments about Muslims, but also possibly because of whatever is at the root of why he won’t make his redacted discharge papers un-redacted and public, which he is clearly very sensitive about.
Green also ran cover for the insurrection, minimizing it, parroting the Big Lie, and voting to throw out the results of a free and fair American election, which one would think would cause Green to take a breath before equating the efforts of Democrats to win elections and pass popular progressive agenda to… Vietnam –A war that left 58,000 Americans dead – 1.4 MILLION casualties total. But since he fancies himself quite the military expert, and has a habit of telling anyone who’ll listen about his night with Saddam Hussein – he even wrote a book about it – it should probably come as no surprise that that’s the prism through which he sees most things.
His article for The Daily Signal, a Conservative news site backed by the Koch-tied Heritage Foundation , takes things to a whole other level though. He titles it: “Ready, Aim, Fire: Left Fired Too Soon and Created Its Own Tet Offensive”
In it, Green compares the efforts of Dems to score political wins to pass a transformative, wildly popular (even in West Virginia!) budget that helps a lot of people an “insurgency” that seeks to “spark an uprising” – ironic considering Green’s lies literally did just that.
He then whines about the left “controlling the propagation of information” (on a site from a right wing think tank, which exists in a nearly impenetrable right-wing media ecosystem), and of course can’t help himself from complaining about “censorship” of those who “counter the progressive narrative” – which a recent report shows is the opposite of the truth:
“Similarly, we have seen censorship rise to new levels on social media, as those who counter the progressive elite’s narrative are silenced. The selective canceling of anyone who doesn’t engage in groupthink undermines the core of what makes this nation great.”
As a reminder, Green’s favorite corrupt president wasn’t kicked off Twitter because he’s not progressive. He was kicked off because he incited an insurrection with his lies and is attacking democracy at every turn.
But Green doesn’t stop there. He then openly accuses “the left” of “conventional warfare”:
“Once enough people have been indoctrinated, the third phase starts: direct conventional warfare. The left has moved quickly into this third phase since President Joe Biden’s victory one year ago—but perhaps too quickly.”
Green is clearly too in love with himself to handle criticism, but any reasonable person would understand using violent, charged rhetoric like this is dangerous and can and has gotten people killed. He’s not even being subtle about it. He literally compares Democrats to the North Vietnamese:
“From taxpayer-funded abortions on demand to defunding the police, from their $3.5 trillion social engineering boondoggle to indoctrinating our children with critical race theory, the Democrats—like the North Vietnamese in 1968—tried to move into phase three too soon. They struck before enough people have been indoctrinated.”
Green then closes by calling the political fight in America a literal “war”:
“Regardless, because of the left’s premature and extreme overreach, the American people were awakened and thus able to end their efforts to create their socialist utopia, for now.
But as in Vietnam, we won a great battle through their premature move to phase three of their insurgency. However, the war is not over—and our fight for this great nation must and will continue.”
Rhetoric like this is dangerous and irresponsible. Our elected leaders should be bringing us together, not dividing us further. People died on January 6th, and more may soon die again if he keeps this up.
Then again, Green showed us he doesn’t actually care about human suffering through his opposition to Medicaid expansion, so maybe we shouldn’t be surprised.
Also, as a reminder, Green’s party lost the White House, the Senate, and the House under Green’s “General” – even Youngkin kept Trump out of Virginia to secure his win – yet “Extreme” Mark Green continues to blindly follow him, and doesn’t seem willing to take any lessons from losing those *battle* in the “war” he thinks he’s fighting, while Tennesseans suffer.