Category: TN Politicians

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Is Mark Green Conflating Illegal Aliens With Refugees?

It’s anybody’s best guess why Green’s explanation of his bill, H.R.3500, doesn’t match what he’s telling folks it’s supposed to do.

Green’s press release about his new bill, “Leads Fight to Block Refugee Resettlement Without State Consent” states in part:

“Last week, in the dead of night, unaccompanied migrant children were flown into Tennessee without our approval or consent. I am alarmed that the Biden Administration would use taxpayer resources to transport refugees into Tennessee without transparency or coordination with state authorities. This overreach and secrecy has to stop.”

In a recent interview with WRCBtv Chattanooga, Green said that he drafted the bill in response to what happened in Chattanooga and that “this bill would mandate permission of the state before they move illegal migrants to Tennessee.”

One really obvious problem is that U.S. law recognizes refugees as legal immigrants who enter the country with express permission of the U.S. government in conformance to specific criteria in U.S. law defining who is a refugee.

The “illegal migrants” Green refers to are Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) who are either dumped at the border by human traffickers or like 16-year old killer Edwin Mejia who was sent to his illegal alien brother in Tennessee, cross the border on their own.

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) which refers to itself as Congress’ “think tank” writes, “[u]naccompanied alien children are statutorily defined as children who lack lawful immigration status in the United States, are under age 18, and lack a parent or legal guardian in the United States or a parent or legal guardian in the United States who is available to provide care and physical custody.”

If the UAC is from a contiguous country, meaning Canada or Mexico and is not a victim of trafficking, Customs & Border Patrol (CBP) can send them back. If however, the UAC is from a non-contiguous country, the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) takes custody. These UACs can apply for asylum or other relief like the Special Immigrant Juvenile Visa (SIJV) which allows them to remain in the U.S. and puts them on a path to citizenship.

Unlike refugees who are legally admissible to the U.S. before they arrive, UACs are subject to removal until and only if they end up with a legal immigration status.

Importantly, the transfer to ORR custody does not in any way convert the UAC into a refugee. In 2002, Congress passed the Homeland Security Act which did many things including moving custody of the UACs from the former Immigration & Naturalization Services to ORR. This change evolved from a series of lawsuits and consent decrees but did not magically make UACs refugees.

An April 2021 CRS paper notes that “[a]ccording to CBP data, almost all apprehended UAC originate from Mexico and the ‘Northern Triangle’ countries – Honduras, ElSalvador, and Guatemala” and that up until FY19 most UACs were coming from Mexico but then flipped to 86% coming from the Northern Triangle countries.

This is a very important data point relating to Green’s bill. Whether he realizes it or not, the way he explains his bill’s purpose is precisely what the Obama administration tried to do in 2014, with the Central American Minors (CAM) program to administratively expand U.S. law on refugees and create a refugee resettlement program for this group. Refugees and asylees must show persecution on account of membership in certain groups, such as nationality or race. The CAM program allowed the ill-defined “particular social group” category to be applicable for various new conditions, such as single motherhood. If it were to be applied system-wide to refugee resettlement it would represent the largest expansion of the definition of the term “refugee” ever seen in the history of the resettlement program. 

 As Obama’s Secretary of State John Kerry said:

“I am pleased to announce that we have plans to expand the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program in order to help vulnerable families and individuals from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras and offer them a safe and legal alternative to the dangerous journey that many are tempted to begin, making them at that instant easy prey for human smugglers who have no interest but their own profits.”

Trump ended the CAM program in 2017. 

Looking at Obama’s attempt to expand who qualifies as a refugee, Center for Immigration Studies senior researcher Dr. Nayla Rush questioned whether Central American children even meet the legal definition of refugee. She makes the following points :

    • “the UN says most are not refugees” 
    • the Migration Policy Institute* appears to agree that – “…being forced to join a gang or experiencing violence do not generally qualify as a basis for refugee status or fall readily into one the the [U.S. law] refugee definition categories.”
    • out of the 50 most dangerous cities in the world in 2015 (excluding those undergoing a war), four are in the United States: St Louis, Detroit, Baltimore, and New Orleans.25 Latin America, it is true, remains far ahead, with 41 cities included in the ranking. But are children who flee gang violence in St. Louis, Baltimore, or the other American cities that made it into the top of the most dangerous cities chart ‘potential refugees’? No one would even think to make that claim. 

One of the problems with Obama’s CAM program was that the parent had to be in the U.S. legally to obtain the coveted refugee status for  their child in Central America. In fact, many of the parents in the CAM program are themselves illegal aliens. 

In her conclusion Rush lets the real genie out of the bottle – it’s the children who, if they obtain refugee status, offer the route through which parents and siblings may obtain legal status in the U.S.

The libertarian Niskanen Center think tank also acknowledges that UACs are ineligible for refugee status. They argue that UACs could get refugee status if U.S. law would expand to include forced conscription, gang recruitment and gender discrimination.

It is a very real possibility that the Biden administration will like Obama, use administrative actions to expand who qualifies as a refugee. This is precisely how the U.S. refugee admissions program under Obama created the resettlement program for the LGBT refugee. 

Green’s bill and his explanation of its purpose confuse UACs with refugees – precisely what Obama and the open border leftists want and the reason they categorize every illegal alien as a “refugee”. 

Even if Green is trying to “cleverly” pre-empt a move by the Biden administration to recreate an Obamaesque CAM program, the mandate that “States Have a Say” will fall on deaf ears for the majority of Republican governors who turned down President Trump’s refugee resettlement opt out in 2019.

 

The plain language of Green’s bill says it will amend 8 USC 1522 – the section of federal law that addresses refugee admissions and which by reference to another section of the code, defines the legal term “refugee” – a term which does not include Green’s “illegal migrants”.

Even assuming Green is relying on the language of Trump’s presidential determination on refugee admissions for FY2021, UACs would still have to meet specific criteria to qualify as a refugee.

All of the legal mumbo jumbo aside, what Tennessee taxpayers should really be concerned about with Green conflating UACs and  refugee resettlement, is the lessons learned from Tennessee’s 10th Amendment challenge to the federal resettlement program. The big take-aways simply put are:

    • upon arrival to the U.S. refugees are immediately able to access all forms of public assistance  on the same basis as U.S. citizens
    • refugees must adjust their status to legal permanent resident (green card) status at year one after admission
    • the federal government has admitted that it shifts the massive cost of this program to state governments
    • and, BILL LEE HAS PASSIONATELY DEFENDED BRINGING MORE REFUGEES TO TENNESSEE 

If one accepts Green’s explanation of his bill, then any objection voiced by Bill Lee to the UACs should be questioned. When Trump gave Lee the choice to say “no” to continued refugee resettlement in Tennessee, Lee abandoned the state’s sovereignty in favor of his personal agenda regarding refugees. Then when he was challenged on his decision, he doubled down and in contravention of Trump’s Executive Order, claimed he had the authority to consent to refugee resettlement for the entire state.

Tennessee’s Lt. Governor and Speaker of the House have decided to convene a joint study committee prompted by the delivery of UACs to the state. Lt. Gov. McNally’s office issued a press release about the joint study committee and seems to be the lone voice at this time that understands that refugees, migrants and immigrants are not all the same and have different immigration statuses.

As a first, they need to change the name of the study committee from the misnomered “Joint Study Committee on Refugee Issues” to the more accurate “Joint Study Committee on Refugees, Illegal Aliens, Migrants & Immigrants”.

And as seems to have become the norm, the news about what the Lee administration’s role in another mishandled and mangled state government function, is not good. It seems that another one of Lee’s departments may have facilitated the arrival of the UACs. Some reports suggest that Lee’s Department of Children’s Services knew and approved that the Chattanooga facility applying for a state license was “to provide housing, personal care, supervision and monitoring to up to 100 unaccompanied minor children . . . ideally up to 30 days, until they are reunited with a sponsor home or appear at an immigration hearing.”

Sounds just like the set-up to receive and care for UACs.

If this report is accurate, Lee put some big egg on the faces of every Tennessee U.S. and state elected official yelling for transparency.

At the very least, we can only hope that the new joint study committee looks to real experts in the field on these issues. As for Mark Green, he should take a cue from the Lt. Governor and get some help from experts like Dr. Rush and figure out what he’s really trying to do with his bill. 

For starters though, Green should stop advancing the idea that there is a legitimate connection between illegally entering UACs and refugees and would do well to recall the multiple documented instances when MS-13 gang members entered the U.S. as UACs and were then awarded with refugee status – here, here and here. This should be of paramount concern now that under Biden, USCIS will stop asking about gang-related information when evaluating adjustment to legal permanent resident, aka, the green card which UACs who are awarded either asylum or the SIJV status are eligible to apply for.

At the very least, Green’s voters should expect an informed discussion of the issue.

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*”The Migration Policy Institute (MPI) is a think tank that produces research and policy analysis advocating for permanent legal residence for undocumented immigrants in the United States and increased legal rights for migrants and refugees worldwide. Migration Policy Institute receives funding from a variety of left-of-center ideological funders, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and George Soros’s Open Society Foundations.”

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Et Tu Jim (Cooper)?

Reprinted here with permission from our friends at the new “Jewish Nashville Uncensored” blog.

3,000-plus rockets targeting Israeli civilians was more than enough for U.S. House Republican supporters of Israel to attempt an expedited vote sanction U.S. designated terrorist groups like Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and governments like Iran which support them.

It wasn’t enough, however, for Tennessee Democrats Rep. Jim Cooper and Steve Cohen to break with Democrats and instead, voted* to block bringing Florida Rep. Brian Mast’s Palestinian International Terrorism Support Prevention Act (H.R.261) bipartisanreauthorization bill to the House floor.

Tennessee Republicans DesJarlais, Rose, Kustoff and Burchett were all co-sponsors of Mast’s bill.

In a very narrow 217-209 vote on Tuesday, May 18th, all Democrats, including Cooper and Cohen, voted to block the move despite the same bill passing unanimously in the House in 2019 although the Senate failed to take up the bill at that time. With the House blocking the bill’s consideration, Rep. Mast, committed to standing with Israel, brought the bill back this session, stating:

“Hamas preaches the destruction of Israel and death to everything we hold dear in the United States.  The recent attacks again show why we must cut off their financial support. But today 200 House Democrats backtracked on their previous support for this bill, and in doing so sent a clear message to the world that they stand with Radical Islamic terrorists like Hamas instead of with our ally Israel.”

Prior to the vote, Minority leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy made clear the importance of once again passing this bill – “[s]upport for Israel should remain a proud, bipartisan, but most of all, clear policy principle in Congress. As our greatest ally in the Middle East faces the most intense siege in 7 years, the House should make it clear to the world that we stand united in support of Israel.”

Today’s media out-of-control anti-Israel bias willingly adopted and spread the propaganda justifying Hamas’ attacks and villainizing Israel’s defense of its citizens – the same propaganda spread by Imam Bahloul in his recent Tennesseean oped. It’s the same propaganda used by Geraldo Rivera to condemn Israel in the name of Palestinian children in Gaza.

However, where are the voices of outrage for Israeli citizens terrorized by indiscriminately fired Hamas rockets? Who protects and speaks for Jewish children in Israel like the three little Fogel children, 11 year old Yoav, 4 year old Elad and their infant sister Hadas, who were murdered in their beds by Palestinian terrorists? The three boys kidnapped and murdered by Hamas? Hallel Yaffa Ariel?

CNN refused to call these acts of savagery terrorism even though the IDF had already said it was “an act of Palestinian terror.”

If this had happened in our country or our state, would our defense be more measured than Israel’s government? Would Nashville’s rabbis and imams who signed onto the “we may be opponents we need not be enemies” letter to the Observer in 2014 continue to stand by a slogan which trivializes Hamas’ vow to wipe the Jewish state off the map and BLM’s commitment to “dismantle the Zionist project”?

Opponents play games. Enemies, like Hamas, want to kill Jews. If the end goal is to destroy the Jewish homeland and kill all the Jews, what difference does it make whether you are an enemy or an opponent?  

No amount or degree of appeasement and funding from the U.S. will convince Hamas and its fellow jihadists to abandon their raison d’etre. Since 1994, U.S. funding to the Palestinians has totaled more than $5 billion dollars “and has been a key part of U.S. policy to encourage an Israeli-Palestinian peace process, improve life for West Bank and Gaza residents, and (since 2007) strengthen the allegedly moderate West Bank-based PA vis-à-vis Hamas in Gaza. U.S. contributions to UNRWA through global humanitarian accounts since 1950 have totaled more than $6 billion.”

Predictably, the Biden administration is pledging billions to rebuild Gaza. Inquiring minds want to know: does this include the miles of tunnels and thousands of missiles that Israel destroyed? And much of the funding will Hamas control? 

Viewed from this vantage point, Rep. Mast’s bill is not only timely, but overdue

Rep. Cooper is the June guest for lunch with the rabbi. 

We suspect Cooper will have prepared a pat justification for his vote to block sanctioning Hamas and that no one will be permitted to question his explanation. “Progressive” Odessa Kelly has already announced her 2022 primary challenge for Cooper’s seat putting pressure on him to up his own progressive bona fides even if it means refusing to acknowledge the fact that Hamas is a terrorist organization that ought to be condemned by anyone with a functioning moral compass. 

Kelly was recruited and is being supported by the Justice Democrats organization which operates out of an address in Knoxville. This is the group which successfully installed and then expanded the anti-Semitic squad in Congress.

Tennessee’s 5th Congressional district voters who are committed to standing with Israel, there are options – Quincy McKnight and Robby Starbuck. While McKnight to date has been silent, Starbuck didn’t hesitate to remind his twitter followers that Hamas is a designated terrorist organization and in a recent podcast, demonstrated a fundamental understanding of the need for the U.S. to assist Israel in remaining safe and secure. Those who care about Israel and its six million Jews should take note of who stands with her when it counts. 

*confirmed by the GOP Whip’s office, roll call 146 where the vote was 217-209, is the procedural vote which dealt with Rep. Mast’s bill.

 

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Why Would TN House Republicans Vote to Denigrate Patriotic Conservative Christians?

It’s no surprise that House Democrats would vote to denigrate Tennessee conservative Christians who  love their country. But what does it say about the House Republicans who voted in agreement? 

Rep. G.A. Hardaway, a Memphis Democrat, was the Chief sponsor of HR110, a resolution to recognize Rev.Dr. William J. Barber II.

Rev.William J. Barber II

Hardway, described the honorific as embodying Barber’s five “interlocking injustices of systemic racism, systemic poverty, the war economy and militarism, ecological devastation, and the false moral narrative of Christian nationalism.”

Not included in the resolution was Barber’s 2013 participation at the Tennessee Highlander Center meeting about how to resist what the assembled group described as the “extreme agenda” being pushed by Republicans.

The resolution failed; only 28 voted yes, 35 voted no, and 20 were either too confused, uninformed, or squeamish, and simply abstained.

Predictably, all 23 Democrats present voted for the resolution; they were joined by 5 Republicans – Reps. Jeremy Faison, William Lamberth, Tandy Darby, Bob Ramsey and Kevin Vaughn.

Faison and Lamberth are part of the House leadership.

 Before the vote, when Rep. Mark Cochran (R-Englewood) questioned what was meant specifically by the term “false moral narrative of Christian nationalism” sponsor Hardaway responded that “there is a Christian nationalism Dr. Barber observes some of those narratives as not being in line with his way of thinking” and why he developed his moral budget ad his moral agenda.

Barber’s Christian nationalism explained by the academic experts

Barber has been understood to use the terms “Christian nationalism,” “religious nationalism” and “white religious nationalism” interchangeably.

Sociology professors Andrew Whitehead and Samuel Perry explain Christian nationalism in their book “Taking America Back for God,” and they agree with Barber that there’s a white Christian nationalism (the worst), and a Black Christian nationalism which is progressive and wants to uplift the downtrodden and marginalized in our country.

Based on the professors’ national survey questions and responses, “Christian nationalism” is a cultural framework used to refer to white Christians, particularly evangelicals, who say that the U.S. was founded on Christianity and therefore must remain a Christian nation. The authors describe “Christian nationalism” as a form of Christianity “that isn’t just about religion, but is a racialized view of America which “‘includes assumptions of nativism, white supremacy, patriarchy and heteronormativity, along with divine sanction for authoritarian control and militarism’” which dominate the political views of the subset surveyed.

But, as they explain, Black Christians get a pass because blacks haven’t been in power and as such, their version of Christian nationalism is more progressive and about a nation that has never lived up to its professing Christian identity.

The two sociologists claim that their national survey results show that people high on the Christian nationalism rating scale tend to be much more opposed to gun control, are much more xenophobic or racist and define being an American as being white and Christian. Worse still, the white version of Christian nationalism is “connected [to] and it connects all these negative ideologies.”

As used by Barber, Christian nationalism is white and its supremacist. Some of Barber’s examples of the “false moral narrative of Christian nationalism” is exemplified by Franklin Graham and Jerry Falwell who don’t “promote the faith from the biblical foundations of love, truth and justice.” Instead, they are part of the “unholy connection” where “[r]eligion is being used as the cover for greed. The term ‘‘evangelical’’ has been hijacked in favor of corporate interests.”  

According to the methodology used by Whitehead and Perry to determine what Christian nationalism means, looks like and implies for the U.S., a phrase like “in God we trust” could be considered a Christian nationalism dog whistle.

What’s obvious is that Barber’s five “interlocking injustices” that form the basis of his moral budget and moral agenda align perfectly with the Movement 4 Black Lives (M4BL) policy platform and the agenda of BLM.

Barber also rallies against Israel and “Trumpvangelicals”

Barber’s speech at the 2018 anti-Israel U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR) national conference affirmed his view that Israel is an apartheid state and that “historically, it is important for us to remember that one path regarding the Zionism project in Palestine was a colonialist project from the beginning…[i]t was  never just purely about righting the terrible wrongs of the Holocaust. But for [Britain’s great colonialist] it was about expanding a global empire.”

Not surprisingly, Barber’s comments align with the whole Christian nationalism narrative which is primarily directed at evangelical Christians who tend to be committed advocates for Israel. It also aligns perfectly with both the M4BL and BLM anti-Israel positions and their promotion of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions (BDS) campaign.

By no coincidence, the USCPR has endorsed M4BL’s policy platforms.

William J. Barber II reveals what he really means when he uses the slur of Christian nationalism came at the close of his speech:

“In this moment when Trumpvangelicals have linked up with Zionist extremists and the corporate facism of white nationalists around the world, it may seem like [the USCPR’s] goal of Palestinian rights is at a low point….The same corporate interests that used white nationalism to put Trump in the White House, and leaned into Zionist extremism to move the U.S. Embassy to Tel Aviv, also want to cut taxes for corporations, deregulate, ignore climate science, take away healthcare, deny living wages, cut the social safety net and give more and more money to the U,S. military. But here’s the good news: There are far more of us than there are of them. And, God have mercy, even some of them have joined us when we’ve come together in truth and love and mercy.”

If you voted for Trump, Barber was talking about you.
If you’re a white Evangelical Christian, Barber was talking about you.
If you believe our country was founded on Judeo-Christian principles and the need to stay true to those principles, Barber was talking about you.
And God forbid, if you support Israel, the sole democratic state in the Middle East, Barber was talking about you and it’s a double whammy if you also happen to be a Christian.

And what about the Barber5 Republicans who voted to honor Barber?

Rep. Bob Ramsey and Kevin Vaughn are illegal alien protectionists.

Rep. Jeremy Faison (chair, House Republican Caucus) – his vote to honor Barber is just one more reason that the House Republican Caucus needs a new chairman.

Rep. Tandy Darby – he’s new and his vote raises questions about him that will require monitoring.

Rep. William Lamberth – at best, his vote is confusing; contact him and ask him to explain – rep.william.lamberth@capitol.tn.gov

The sociologists who defined Christian nationalism say that white Americans who adhere to this ideology, see it almost as an ethnic identity with others who share their cultural values and who “look like them.”

Rep. Yusuf Hakeem (D-Chattanooga) who wants critical race theory (CRT) taught in Tennessee schools, admitted as much during the House Education discussion about HB580, the CRT bill:

“There are those and I’m among them who feel systemic racism is real. As an example of how our system has allowed one group of people see as superior and one inferior. I’m a member of the Christian church like many of you but I remember growing up and when I looked at God he didn’t look like me and I think that some people interpreted that as they were better because they looked like God and some people who looked like me did not. I think this should be cleared up by history, by standards, by what we teach.”

The Barber5 Republicans had already voted to ban the teaching of CRT in Tennessee public schools. How then did the Barber5 completely fail to understand that Barber’s Christian nationalism point of view is nothing more than camouflage for using the lens of CRT in all aspects of life?

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TN State Funds Catholic Charities’ Infrastructure for Refugee Resettlement

In November 2020, Tennessee’s Department of Human Services used the state’s bloated TANF fund to award Catholic Charities of Tennessee (CCTN) a $7.3 million dollar grant. The money will be used to help Catholic Charities expand its operations in Middle Tennessee by establishing family resource centers in ten locations – Montgomery, Maury, Marshall, Bedford, Coffee Grundy, Warren, White, Dekalb and Putnam counties.

Family resource centers in Davidson County are staffed to assist individuals including refugees to access public benefits and services. In fact, one such center specializes in assisting refugees. Last year CCTN moved its South Nashville family resource center into the Conexion Americas Casa Asafran building. It now shares space with the Global Education Center and Metro Public Schools, the American Muslim Advisory Council (AMAC), and Justice For Our Neighbors (JFON), an organization which advocates for illegal alien “rights” including Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC)* who are currently being transported and housed in Chattanooga.**

As part of their services, CCTN assists in connecting UACs dropped off at the border, to family members in Tennessee who may have also entered the U.S. in violation of immigration laws like the case of Edwin Mejia in Tennessee.

CCTN’s former State Refugee Coordinator Holly Johnson admitted that her agency helps link UACs to their family members in Tennessee. At the US Conference of Catholic Bishops level, taking custody of the UACs is the “doing well by doing good” business – over $23 million dollars in 2019, quite a haul considering that the UAC numbers were extremely low compared to what the Biden administration has unleashed.

Regarding the resettlement of refugees from overseas, it is no secret that Bill Lee is a passionate supporter  for spreading them throughout the state. He is joined in his support for the federal program by state Sen. Page Walley who works for an organization that makes money providing refugee resettlement services.

Over the years the refugee mileage placement rules have enabled CCTN to place refugees in many of the counties that the $7.3 million dollars in state money is now funding to help CCTN expand and set up more formal operations.

50-100 miles covers almost the whole state

CCTN’s executive director thanked Governor Lee and the DHS for their largesse in giving them the largest grant in the history of the organization assuming of course that the multi-millions received year after year from the federal government, is ignored.

CCTN wears several hats in Tennessee including operating as the State Refugee Coordinator (SRC) overseeing the federal contractors paid to bring refugees to the state. In 2008, then governor Phil Bredesen formally withdrew the state from the federal program after which the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement chose CCTN to continue the state’s refugee resettlement program.

Once Catholic Charities took over the program opening the TN Office for Refugees and employing the State Refugee Coordinator, the number of refugees being brought to the state increased by over 60% even as numbers were declining nationally.

CCTN’s state plan was to increase the number of agencies resettling refugees so they could increase the number of refugees being brought to Tennessee.This federal program has been a cash cow for CCTN and the federal contractors resettling refugees.

Government funding, in particular for work related to refugee resettlement, has dominated CCTN’s work. For example, the last available CCTN report, FY2015-16, shows just under $10 million dollars in refugee resettlement grants which come from the federal government.

The financial breakdown clearly showing the heavy dependence on refugee resettlement funds was available on CCTN’s website until 2018 – it has now been removed making the organization’s operations much less transparent.

However, according to the financials posted on the Tennessee Secretary of State website, CCTN’s budget appears to continue to be heavily dependent on government funding.

None of the resettlement contractors operating in Tennessee, including CCTN and the SRC, consult with or are accountable to the state legislature which is forced to expend state dollars to operationalize the refugee resettlement program.

For this reason alone there are reasonable and legitimate questions about why the Tennessee state government chose CCTN of all organizations, to infuse with big dollars. Asked another way, why hasn’t the state simply taken back the SRC function so the state can control the number of refugees brought to the state and the amount of state dollars used for the federal program?

On April 16th, Biden signed a memo intended to speed up the arrival of refugees but left Trump’s FY21 low cap in place – that was until the religious groups who need to fill their coffers, raised the roof. By the afternoon of the 16th, Biden caved and promised that by mid-May, the cap for the remainder of the fiscal year, would be raised to over 60,000.

Don’t be surprised if the enhanced vetting criteria put in place by Trump goes by the wayside. In 2016, after Obama announced that the U.S. would take 10,000 Syrian refugees, his administration “repeatedly shortened the timeframe” for vetting these refugees in order to get as close to that number as possible. So when refugee contractors claim that refugees are the most thoroughly vetted immigrants to the U.S…..

On thing is for certain – when the call comes that refugees are ready to come to Tennessee, CCTN will be ready!

 

*in line with the Biden administration’s unconstitutional rewrite of U.S. immigration law and erase the illegal immigration status of UACs, they are now referred to simply as “UC” – unaccompanied children.
**once UACs are released to sponsors in Tennessee, they are entitled to attend public school.

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Cowardly TN Legislators (and Governor) Willingly Sacrifice the State at the Business Shrine

And in the process, enable local governments to be run by Marxists, diminish the opportunities for lesser-skilled workers, and generally degrade the quality of life for freedom-loving Tennesseans.

Every time the governor or a member of the Tennessee General Assembly rolls out the “we’re a business friendly state” excuse for why they won’t vote to do X or Y, they should be reminded of four things:

1.abetting the emerging business-driven “soft” vaccine mandates in Tennessee will not end well for incumbents

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)’s December 2020 guidance on vaccinations does not prohibit employers from requiring COVID vaccination as a condition of employment, but does recognize that there are exemptions for certain disabilities and those with a sincerely held religious belief.

Take Bridgestone (we’ll pay you to take the COVID shot), Tony Ludlow’s fitness program in Memphis (no vaccine no admission), and Williamson County medical center for starters.

Any number of bills related to COVID – SB7/HB10, SB320/HB794, SB564/HB1269, have fallen by the wayside this session. One bill still standing and which may provide some degree of protection is SB187/HB13 which preserves the religious exemption for COVID and its variant vaccines.

However, it does not apply to private businesses so individuals may have to avail themselves of the EEOC process. An amendment was filed by Sen. Haile that also exempted government-run hospitals, nursing homes and public universities so employees and perhaps even university attendees and nursing home residents may still be subject to an institution mandated vaccine program.

Sen. Ferrell Haile

Republicans legislators tend to send a message of semi-appeasement, indecisiveness and lack of backbone on very controversial issues. Democrats, however, have no problem sticking together and casting morally reprehensible votes against bills like Rep. Tim Rudd’s “Unborn Child Dignity Act” which requires burial or cremation for aborted babies.

Rudd described his bill as seeking to “extend the protections, dignity and respect of a deceased surgically aborted child as granted to any other deceased human being…the bill would make the same level of respect applicable as currently available to pets.”

Democrats on the House Health Committee and Senate Judiciary Committee voted against the bill

2. illegal aliens depress the wages of the least skilled Tennessee workers

Despite recognizing the connection between job development, employment of Tennesseans and illegal immigration, Haslam reneged on his campaign promise to “do everything within my authority to be sure that Tennessee does not attract illegal activity.” He refused to sign the sanctuary city bill in 2108, so it went into law without his signature.

Gubernatorial candidate Bill Lee said he would have signed the sanctuary city bill. Governor Bill Lee, however, has been silent on the 67,000 illegal aliens taking jobs from legal Tennesseans.

As to the employment of illegal aliens in Tennessee, the General Assembly and its conflict-of-interest driven voting, is complicit in throwing legal Tennessee workers and conservative voters under the bus in deference to the wishes of the Chamber of Commerce and NFIB, because “we are a business friendly state.”

3. spending state taxpayer dollars to relocate woke corporations which then work against Constitutionally-based public policy, ultimately backfires

In 2018, for example, former governor and never-Trumper Bill Haslam handed over $20+ million of Tennessee taxpayer dollars to get Alliance Bernstein (AB), a NYC investment management and research firm, to move its new corporate headquarters and its leftist wokeness to Nashville.

At the time, Lamar and Corker couldn’t heap enough praise on Haslam for bringing in more New Yorkers to benefit from living in a no-state-income-tax state – a product of a more conservative leaning legislature buttressed by hefty and sustained support from voters.

Part of AB’s “Social Responsibility” platform is “promoting gender and racial equity.”

Upon arrival, AB didn’t hesitate to try and use its economic weight to influence the Tennessee General Assembly’s work. In 2019, AB joined with the likes of Taylor Swift, Amazon, the Equality Project and the Nashville LGBT Chamber of Commerce to oppose bills which they claimed discriminated against the LGBT community.

Included in the bills to which AB and its allies objected, was the “Tennessee Natural Marriage Defense Act,” (SB1282/HB1369), intended as a response to the Obergefell decision and to uphold the Tennessee Constitution’s “defense of marriage” provision (one man and one woman being the only legally recognized marital contract in Tennessee).

It’s a telling and troubling sign that this bill was never heard in any committee and that a Republican supermajority legislature couldn’t find its way to support the state’s Constitutional amendment which was approved by 81.3% (close to 1.5 million votes) on the November 2006 ballot, and approved overwhelmingly by all four of Tennessee’s socialist counties.

Cementing its woke status, AB’s (white) vice-president Daniel Weisman joined the Nashville-based Equity Alliance’s board.

Founded in 2016, The Equity Alliance mission is to build black and people of color power. The campaigns to “build power” include corrupting Tennessee’s voter integrity laws by pushing to expand absentee voting and vote by mail. Their 501(c)(4) Equity Alliance Action Fund (the Fund) is a member of the Nashville Justice League (NCL) which has successfully helped socialist candidates get elected to the Metro Nashville City Council; their success has been championed by the Marxist group Liberation Road.

The Fund endorsed Marxist candidate Marquita Bradshaw in the 2020 Senate primary. She lost but another of their chosen “progressive” candidates Torey Harris won a seat in the state legislature to become the youngest state legislator who describes himself as bi-sexual. Now they are taking on the Chattanooga City Council.

Given the Fund’s track record, it’s perfectly predictable that they will endorse Odessa Kelly who has announced running for Congress against Rep. Jim Cooper. Kelly was recruited and is being supported by the Justice Democrats which operates out of an address in Knoxville. They are the group which successfully installed the anti-Semitic squad in Congress and is using its power to change Congress and assault the South.

Response from our Republican legislators? We’re a “business friendly state.”

4. the good-will of freedom-loving voters is running out

The extreme failure and dysfunction of the legislature to proactively address the assault on Tennessee from Biden’s insane actions on illegal immigration, taking a “mum’s the word” approach to possible business-driven vaccine mandates and generally demonstrating that they are unprepared and unwilling to unqualifiedly uphold Constitutional principles and God-given rights and freedoms, without which, we are finished.

 

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Hagerty’s Letter – He’s Not Accountable for Certifying ‘Tainted Election Results’

Four days before the electoral college votes reached Congress, Hagerty and Blackburn surprised Tennesseans with a strong, forthright commitment to object to certifying the electoral vote stating unequivocally that, “without any reservation that we will stand against tainted electoral results from the recent Presidential election.”

In true swamp fashion, Hagerty and Blackburn turned their backs on both Tennessee voters and their Constitutional duties and sheepishly certified the “tainted election results.”

When confronted for an explanation, Blackburn’s response was “changed circumstances” – whatever that was supposed to mean since nothing changed the problem with the election results.

Hagerty’s overtly hypocritical non-response demonstrates that he is what Tennessee conservatives have always known him to be – a “DeceptiCon,” a term coined by blogger Sundance to describe the Senate’s Republican Professional Political Class, aka, the Establishment GOP. Increasingly, Blackburn has demonstrated that she is also part of this group.

How quickly they both turned their backs on President Trump without whom Hagerty would have had a nothing-themed campaign.

Bottom line – these Republicans don’t view themselves as accountable to voters – they are only accountable to “the swamp,” a system designed to suppress the conservative viewpoint and keep DeceptiCons in office for as long as they can fool voters by making campaign promises that they don’t keep.  

When asked to explain his vote to undermine President Trump, Hagerty refused to answer. Instead, he deflected, figuring that annoying inquirers would accept his trade-off of not supporting impeachment.

Read it for yourself and if you aren’t satisfied with Hagerty’s non-response, consider emailing him and letting him know how disrespectfully he has treated Republicans who put him in office.

 

 

 

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County GOPs Begin Censuring Blackburn and Hagerty v.2 corrected

If any two legislators deserve censure it’s these two turn-coat senators.

They abandoned their Constitutional duties and the commitment they made to Tennessee voters to object to the “tainted election results” which is exactly how they described what happened in the election for president.

The censure momentum is growing with more county GOPs readying their pens.

Blackburn and Hagerty are taking the elite politico’s tact of never apologizing and simply ignoring the backlash. After all, they firmly believe that the rank and file voters have short memories and all will be forgotten and forgiven when the next election rolls around.

Marsha has two very short years during which the effects of Biden’s massive expansion of every stripe of immigration (think Southern border caravans of thousands) will effect the safety of all Americans along with the drive-down of wages for the lower skilled American workers.

Marsha would do well to understand that when her RINO buddies in the Senate go along with the bipartisan amnesty plan, it won’t even matter if she speaks or votes against it. She bears responsibility for enshrining Biden as President because she abdicated and certified false election results.

Conservatives never liked Hagerty anyway and his turn will come soon enough. And the next time he runs, he won’t have President Trump to help pave his way into office.

It’s pretty predictable that Marsha and Hagerty will gravitate to the Lamar-Haslam-Corker side of the party since they will need every RINO vote available to fill the gap left by non-voting Conservatives.

Here’s the Resolution of Censure passed by Henry County in case anyone wants to take it to their county GOP:

 

 

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Blackburn Gushes Over Basketball Player Who Favors “Taking a Knee” and Protesting with BLM in Interview About Freedom and Free Speech

This week’s guest on “Unmuted with Marsha” is Turkish-born NBA basketball player Enes Kanter who became a U.S. citizen last year and is reported to be dating a Rockefeller.

Marsha begins by gushing over Enes during her introduction – “he has been such a strong advocate for “human rights, for democracy, for justice….”

High praise from the alleged conservative Senator from Tennessee, for a foreign-born NBA basketball player who favors “taking a knee” during our national anthem and who spoke at a Black Lives Matter protest in Boston.

Enes Kanter protest with BLM in Boston

Marsha expresses extreme concern about the “socialistic control” being exerted by Turkey’s president Erdogan and is overly impressed by Kanter using his pseudo-celebrity status to speak out against it. She’s so impressed with this basketball player that she wants to know what he thinks about U.S. sanctions put on Turkey for purchasing a Russian air defense system. Kanter appears to be against the sanctions because he believes direct action against Erdogan is needed.

Of course, any and all conversations are structured around Marsha being able to talk about herself, unless of course it’s about explaining her vote to certify the “tainted election results” on January 6th.

Appearing to read from her script, Marsha talks about a resolution she co-sponsored “condemning Turkey’s crack-down on free speech and dissent” and Erdogen’s pattern of “using any pretext to crush minority voices and inflict fear.”

Anyone else think Marsha could have used this time to talk about the crushing of conservative voices that began during the Obama administration? What about the Biden administration, abetted by the corrupt media and the likes of Amazon, Facebook, Google and Twitter dismantling the remaining remnants of right-wing opposition voices?

Hyper-focused on the “socialistic control” she attributes to Turkey, Marsha congratulates Kanter for using his NBA platform to address free speech abuses in Turkey, after he recounts the retaliation taken on his family still living there:

“your courage is really quite remarkable and you know, when you talk about authoritarian regimes and socialistic control and you hear first-hand from someone who is living through this you see the dangers that come with people being forced to give their freedoms, whether its their freedom of speech or religion, their right to protest, their right to make decisions for themselves, the right to achieve their hopes and dreams and goals – your sister going to medical school, your brother wanting to be a basketball player in the NBA, you see how important it is that we continue to fight every day for freedom and justice and liberty and equality under the law and to have that rule of law that is going to be a constant for us, an absolute constant for us knowing that it is going to be fairly applied to each and everyone….”

A better choice for an “Unmuted” guest at this moment in time and one Marsha’s base relates to, is the Parler CEO John Matze. Parler quickly became the conservative’s alternative to Twitter, especially after President Trump was shut down by Twitter. Aside from being gang-raped by the left’s big-tech, Matze was forced into hiding with his family due to death threats and security breaches. As far as we can tell, Marsha’s basketball player is living the good lefty life in the U.S. while making his family in Turkey shoulder the consequences of his advocacy.

On January 6th, Marsha quickly condemned the rioters. Since she keeps telling us that she’s all for freedom and free speech, why didn’t she stand up for the peacefully assembled rally goers, some from Tennessee among them, who were asserting their First Amendment rights?

Marsha threw the peaceful rally-goers under the bus along with every legal and legitimate voter in Tennessee and across the U.S., contradicting her own explicit “Fact Sheet on Electoral Vote Count.” The only explanation she has offered to date is the obtuse – “changed circumstances.” What is that supposed to mean?

Kanter closes his interview with Marsha by encouraging the Turkish people to step up because “Turkey could be the bridge of Islam and the West.” 

Marsha needs to be muted and primaried

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Hagerty & Blackburn Were Against Election Fraud Before They Certified It

Six days after Tennessee’s two Senators voted to certify the electoral college votes, One America News questioned why the Democrats were being allowed to divert attention away from the “mounting” evidence of election fraud, including a number of the easiest to question:

Pennsylvania – 205,000 over-votes (meaning more votes than registered voters); 682,000 votes illegally processed due to lack of oversight.

Georgia – 66,248 underage voters; 10,315 dead people voted; 2,560 convicted felons voted; 4,502 unregistered voters voted.

Arizona – 36,400 non-citizens voted.

These and many more election irregularities such as those related to absentee ballots are catalogued in the three-part Navarro report which concludes that “[t]here was no single ‘silver bullet’ that allegedly won the election for Biden; instead it was ‘death by a thousand irregularities’ in any given battleground state; and, most importantly with respect to the question as to whether the election may well have been stolen, the narrow alleged Biden ‘victory’ margins in each of the six battleground states were dwarfed by the number of potentially illegal ballots.”

On January 2, four days before the electoral college votes reached Congress, Hagerty and Blackburn surprised Tennesseans with a strong, forthright commitment to object to certifying the electoral vote:

“Tennesseans elected us as their United States Senators to represent their views and values in Washington and to always fight for them, which is why we have concluded without any reservation that we will stand against tainted electoral results from the recent Presidential election. We know that our elections, built around the Electoral College which is a fundamental element, are the envy of the world. Protecting their integrity and ensuring the results are free and fair are critical to maintaining the trust of our own citizens. Since November 3, hardworking men and women from across Tennessee have contacted us to justifiably express anger and concern that some states conducted the recent election in a manner that did not respect the rule of law and may have violated many of their state constitutions as well as Article II of the U.S. Constitution. Many are concerned about the sanctity of the one person one vote guarantee. Our founders understood that it is ultimately the people’s job to preserve the sanctity of these most fundamental American systems, and so they charged the people’s representatives in Congress with a specific role in the process. We plan to exercise that role fully in the new Congress.” — Senator Marsha Blackburn and Senator-elect Bill Hagerty

Big bold words which Hagerty and Blackburn ditched after the Antifa riot as if somehow it justified their back-pedaling. The feckless and insincere Benedict Arnolds reversed course, voted to certify what they previously claimed were “tainted electoral results” and hand the country over to the tyranny of a Biden-Harris-Pelosi-Schumer administration.

Unlike the intelligent and principled Sen. Josh Hawley from Missouri, Hagerty and Blackburn showed how little respect they have for legal voters in Tennessee – including the ones who have given them the privilege of serving in the U.S. Senate. They’ve shown Tennesseans how quickly and easily they will concede and have yet to explain how or why they now believe that election fraud is acceptable.

Even if one believes that the responsibility to address the electoral shenanigans rests with state legislatures, members of Congress have the statutory option and the representative duty, to question, debate, and if necessary, object to electoral outcomes.

Once the Capitol was secured and the electoral vote count resumed, Hawley continued explaining his objection to Pennsylvania and the “unprecedented interference of the Big Tech corporations in this election in favor of the Biden campaign, not just in Pennsylvania but everywhere.” Hawley’s wife and child had been threatened in their home by protestors the night before Congress’ counting of the electoral votes. Hawley refused to be intimidated either by the harassment of his family or the pathetic “riot” at the Capitol – he moved forward offering making his statement of objection because he refuses to “bow to a lawless mob.”  

In stark but sadly, predictable contrast, Hagerty and Blackburn put their own political careers ahead of their oath of office. They put their own self-interests ahead of their representative duties. They fled from upholding the Constitution.

Hagerty used President Trump’s endorsement to fool the uninformed voter and when the going got tough on January 6th, Hagerty showed Tennesseans that he is neither loyal to the one that brung him to the dance and that he is sufficiently arrogant to take voters for granted.

Blackburn’s betrayal is the best evidence that she has been in D.C. waaaaaay too long!

Both have impugned their credibility and indelibly proved they can’t be trusted – as if they ever could. It remains to be seen whether Hagerty’s new fixer-smoother-over Jim Henry, a long-standing Republican political insider, can gloss over the fact that Hagerty has always been an Establishment RINO.

Let’s see how creatively Hagerty and Blackburn explain selling-out Republicans in Tennessee – that is, if they ever bother to explain themselves. It also remains to be seen the effect these sell-outs have on the Tennessee GOP.

 

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Tullahoma City Alderwoman Rupa Blackwell At It Again!

Once again, a leftist , progressive city level politician aims to transform the city of Tullahoma TN by creating a “diversity” council. Alderwoman Rupa Blackwell, who was endorsed by the Women for Tennessee’s Future, a very liberal organization whose founding member was the disgraced, former mayor of Nashville Megan Barry, among others. According to the donor website “Open Secrets”, the Women for Tennessee’s Future is listed as a “liberal” organization.

Alderwoman Rupa Blackwell

                                      

This isn’t about diversity. Diversity is a word used when certain members of various populations want to change their surroundings to fit their beliefs and lifestyles.  This is about the current political climate throughout America, which is anti-everything that America stands for.

In a previous article published on Dailyrollcall.com in July of 2020, we exposed the original agenda which included residents of the city of Tullahoma suggesting ideas which could be the focus of this new “council” which centered on bullying, the lgbtq community, and gender bias. Also discussed were the possible renaming of anything confederate, such as schools and streets.

While everyone believes in fairness and equality for all, this formation of a government entity would allow said governing body (Tullahoma City Council)  to create special classes of people, that would be given special considerations. That is not the role of any body of elected officials.

Despite the push for a socialist agenda, we are still a Republic governed by a Constitution which is for all the people, not those designated by liberals as marginalized. 

If the residents of the City of Tullahoma wish to remain in the governing for all business, they will consider voting Rupa Blackwell out in 2022.  

In the meantime, Tullahoma and Coffee County residents should attend an open meeting on Weds, Dec 2 at 4pm at the Tullahoma City Hall to say no to government creating special classes of residents!