VIDEO: The Justin Jones & Jeneisha Harris Hearing

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Video from the hearing of Justin Jones & Jeneisha Harris last week, presided over by openly bigoted D.A. Northcott, who says Muslims are “evil” and refuses to recognize the supreme court’s marriage equality ruling and treat LGBT people equally under the law (both stories broken by the Holler).

He also refuses to bring in the TBI to investigate Speaker Casada possibly framing Jones, even though they have offered (see below).300 Tennessee attorneys just filed a motion to have Northcott’s law license taken away.

The next hearing is August 15th at 9AM in Courtroom 4D.

 

VIDEO: HUMAN CHAIN IN HERMITAGE

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Watch neighbors form a Human Chain in Hermitage yesterday to protect a father and son from ICE and allow them to get from the van they were trapped in for hours into their house.

The family then gathered their belongings into plastic bags and fled.

Read the Newsweek story.

(Video from Occupy Democrats & Nashville Noticias)

VIDEO: MEET ZULFAT SUARA – Candidate for Nashville Metro Council At-Large

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There are 15 candidates running for 5 at-large seats on the Metro Council in the August election. Zulfat Suara is the first Muslim woman to have ever run for any position in the state of Tennessee- she ran in 2014 in Bolivar, Tenn., for school board – and if elected, she will be the first Muslim, male or female, ever elected in Tennessee.

She has been the target of hate online, but she has persevered, and was just recently one of the candidates endorsed by the Tennessean.

We spoke with Zulfat in Nashville at a candidates picnic at Vanderbilt, where one of her daughters is enrolled in Medical school. Please watch and SHARE the video.

MEET ZULFAT:

VIDEO: LIGHTS FOR LIBERTY ACROSS TENNESSEE

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Tennesseans across the state gather to protest the Trump administration’s inhumane treatment of refugees and immigrants at the border, especially children.

Rep. Weaver Won’t Call For Rep. Byrd To Resign

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Despite Rep. David Byrd apologizing ON TAPE to 1 of 3 women who say he sexually abused them in high school, Weaver tells (rumored primary challenger) Luke Tinsley she won’t ask Byrd to resign, defends disgraced Rep. Jeremy Durham who was accused of inappropriate sexual conduct – including sexual harassment – by 22 women.
 
Rep. Weaver was previously seen defending her decision not to call for the removal of the bust of the KKK’s first Grand Wizard from the capitol by saying “some of my best friends are black”.
 
PSA: ALL TENNESSEE REPS should be asked if they’ll call for Byrd’s resignation, and if they’ll call for the removal of the first KKK Grand Wizard’s bust from the capitol.
 
These things are about basic human decency, not partisanship.

GOV. LEE SIGNS FIRST KKK GRAND WIZARD DAY PROCLAMATION

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From the Tennessean today:

Gov. Bill Lee has proclaimed Saturday as Nathan Bedford Forrest Day in Tennessee, a day of observation to honor the former Confederate general and early Ku Klux Klan leader whose bust is on display in the state Capitol.

Per state law, the Tennessee governor is tasked with issuing proclamations for six separate days of special observation, three of which, including the July 13 Forrest Day, pertain to the Confederacy.

There have been repeated protests of the bust of Forrest, the KKK’s first Grand Wizard, which is still featured prominently in the Tennessee state legislature to this day.

The Tennessean reports that Lee said “I signed the bill because the law requires that I do that and I haven’t looked at changing that law.”

They also remind us that Lee was found to have worn confederate uniforms in college, which he now says he regrets:

Lee earlier this year said he regretted participating in “Old South” parties at Auburn University nearly four decades ago as part of Kappa Alpha Order, a fraternity that lists Robert E. Lee as its “spiritual founder.”

The governor, a college student at the time, was also pictured in an Auburn yearbook dressed in a Confederate Army uniform, a common practice for members of the fraternity at the time.

“I never intentionally acted in an insensitive way, but with the benefit of hindsight, I can see that participating in that was insensitive and I’ve come to regret it,” Lee said in February.

Lee has said he may be open to “adding context” to the statue rather than removing it, but has done nothing to pursue that.

Rep. Bob Freeman has proposed replacing it with a women’s suffrage statue, and has vowed to introduce that legislation in the next session.

Holler at your reps to support Freeman’s legislation, and holler at Governor Bill Lee if you think he should not be reaffirming Nathan Bedford Forrest Day.

CHAINING PREGNANT WOMEN TO CHAIRS

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Below is Channel 5’s new report on Clay County jail shackling pregnant women to chairs for days at a time.
Not mentioned in the report: State Senator Raumesh Akbari and Rep. Karen Camper had a bill to rein in this heinous practice, but it was VOTED DOWN by Republicans Rep. Andrew Farmer, Justin Lafferty for State Representative 89th District, and Rep Chris Todd. 
 
While Gov. Bill Lee & the GOP supermajority tell us how great things are in Tennessee, Clay County just lost their hospital and their jail is so poor they’re shackling pregnant women for extending periods. #RealStateOfTheState
 
Holler at Farmer, Todd, and Lafferty if you disagree with what they did.

MORALLY INEPT: Byrd Lies to A Reporter, Lee Avoids Doing the Right Thing (again)

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There was a sequence of events yesterday that was so ridiculous we just wanted to make sure to connect the dots for everyone.

As you all know by now, here in Tennessee we have a state representative named David Byrd who apologized on tape to one of 3 women who say he sexually abused them when he was their basketball coach in high school.
Despite hearing the tape, and hearing Byrd apologize for what he had done, Speaker Glen Casada helped Byrd get re-elected by attacking the victims as “fake news”, and then promptly made Byrd chair of an education subcommittee after he won.
Casada would later remove him, only after a group of brave women relentlessly pointed out that it was a disgusting thing to do (and only after Byrd went against Casada on a key vote to help Governor Lee privatize public schools dollars through his school voucher program).
During the ordeal, Speaker Casada lied to The Holler about meeting with the victims. Governor Lee actually did meet with one of them, and then finally, 70 days later – only after Speaker Casada went up in flames and agreed to stop being speaker – Governor Lee said he believed the victims… but stopped short of asking Byrd to resign.
That brings us to just this week, when brave Tennessean Anna Grabowski confronted Lee, asking him to get Byrd out of the legislature. Lee told her it would happen “soon”, seeming to imply Byrd would be expelled at the upcoming special session to remove speaker Casada in August.
WATCH:

Wonderful! Better late than never, right? Finally it seemed Governor Lee was going to do the right thing and get the Tennessee Republican supermajority to expel David Byrd (aka Tennessee’s Jeffrey Epstein) during the special session in August.
Not so fast.
The same day we posted that video (yesterday), Governor Lee then spoke to the Tennessean and told them he wasn’t asking Byrd to resign, and Byrd wouldn’t be expelled at the special session. Instead, Lee told them he had called David Byrd and asked him not to run again… in 18 months.
In other words, Governor Lee believes the victims, and believes David Byrd did sexually abuse those children, but he’s willing to let him stay in office for nearly TWO MORE YEARS. 
Not only that, but Lee also told channel 5 news that when Anna Grabowski asked him to get the “child molester” out of office, Lee thought she was asking him about Speaker Casada, and he says he was talking about removing him as speaker, not expelling Byrd.

This is literally impossible to believe. Anna was 1 foot from him. The exchange is clear.
On top of that, when AP reporter Kim Kruesi reached out to Rep. Byrd to ask him if Lee had in fact asked him not to run again, Byrd told her that wasn’t true.

Byrd then immediately tried to backtrack and say it was a “private conversation” he had had with Lee. But it was too late. He had already outed himself on the record to a reporter as a liar, while also essentially calling Governor Lee a liar.
So, TO RECAP: Governor Lee almost did the right thing, only to find a way to do the wrong thing, then lied about why he seemed to almost do the right thing… while Byrd lied about Governor Lee doing the wrong thing and essentially called the Governor a liar.
Got all that?
Bottom Line: The truth does not matter to these people.
Meanwhile, Byrd is still in office, as is Speaker Casada, and Governor Lee manages to show us his true colors daily, putting his moral incompetence and inability to actually do the right thing on full display.
This one should’ve been easy all along. Child sex abuse should not be a partisan issue.
Byrd must go. And he should take speaker Casada with him. Holler at Governor Lee if you agree.

VIDEO: BETO COMES TO NASHVILLE

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Video from Beto O’Rourke’s rally here in Tennessee this week. Beto was impressive, and the energy was great. We appreciate his optimistic message about immigration, and we also appreciate that he came to see us and spent time in the community.

We hope all the other presidential candidates will do the same.