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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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Jew-Hating Demonstrators Alive & Well in Tennessee

Liora Rez, Executive director of StopAntisemitism.org puts it simply – “wherever anti-Zionism goes, anti-Semitism quickly follows.”

Nakba Day marches are now occurring across the country. ’Nakba’ is translated as “the catastrophe” and is what Palestinians label the reestablishment of the State of Israel. For anti-Israel agitators nakba day marks the supposed Zionist conspiracy to ethnically cleanse Palestine when the State of Israel was established. Not so; “[i]n reality, Nakba Day is a gross misrepresentation of history. The [Palestinian] refugees were created by the Arab Muslim desire to wage Jihad against the Jews.”

One anti-Israel protest march joined by the Nashville Peace & Justice Center (NPJC) was held in downtown Nashville on Wednesday, May 12; another organized by the Democratic Socialist of America was held in Knoxville on Saturday the 15th, and another is scheduled in Nashville for Saturday, May 21st. This one is being organized under the Samidoun umbrella by students from MTSU; NPJC is promoting it as well. These protests are not the first to take place in Tennessee, they are simply getting larger.

In 2014, Marxist Ash-Lee Henderson’s intersectionally-based anti-Jew protest was held in Chattanooga when she was an organizer with Concerned Citizens for Justice, a self-identified black liberation organization. “’We recognize that there is total intersection between what is happening to the Palestinian community overseas and what has happened with apartheid and Jim Crow to people who identify as African-American,’” said Ash-Lee Henderson, an organizer with Concerned Citizens for Justice.”

At the same time, Drost Kokoye, a co-founder and board member of Tennessee’s AMAC (American Muslim Advisory Council), in collaboration with the NPJC, led an anti-Israel counter-protest across the barricade from a pro-Israel rally.

Daoud Abudiab, another co-founder of AMAC and its first chairman, is a fellow traveler of Israel haters. Trying hard to portray himself as an interfaither with the singular agenda of creating a positive impression of Muslims through his “Our Muslim Neighbor,” (a project of Religions for Peace USA, an organization itself tied to Muslim Brotherhood organizations), Abudiab launched his Faith and Culture Center in 2014. Then his Center joined Nashville’s leftist collective to strategize with the emerging local BLM chapter. That was the same year that BLM leaders traveled to “occupied Palestine” and publicly announced their support for the Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.

Coming out of the closet in his own way, Abudiab joined the Muslim Brotherhood organizations at the inaugural USCMO conference the same year the USCMO issued its “Washington Declaration”, an initiative intended to unite a globalized Islamist political force. The USCMO was founded by every major U.S.-based Jew-hating organization including CAIR, AMP (BDS leader American Muslims for Palestine), MAS – the Muslim American Society whose founder admitted that his organization was founded by members of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Following his attendance at the USCMO conference, Abudiab amplified his anti-Israelism by choosing to support FOSNA’s (Friends of Sabeel North America) agenda. FOSNA attacks Christian Zionism, promotes the BDS campaign against Israel, and has teamed up with Black 4 Palestine to bring black churches and clergy into their Israel and Jew hate efforts.

FOSNA remains on the Anti-Defamation League’s top ten list of anti-Israel organizations in the U.S.

In 2015, Daoud Abudiab chose to speak at FOSNA’s 2015 conference which in the course of pretending to be focused on a “struggle for a just peace” offered a panel discussion on BDS, a key component of which is right of return for alleged Palestinian refugees.

Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the BDS campaign made it clear in 2010, and again, more recently, that the goal of BDS and return of alleged Palestinian refugees, is to eliminate Israel. He expressly rejects a two-state solution and says that a Palestinian right of return is the way to end Israel as a Jewish state.

Not long after joining up with FOSNA, Abudiab shared his Israel animus on facebook. He posted an article titled Court Says Israel Owns Jaffa House Because Arab Family Members Left in 1948, along with his comment – “injustice ignored is never forgotten. What goes around comes around one day!”

That day arrived this week based in part on the excuse of Israel’s Supreme Court preparing to hear an appeal in a dispute over four houses in the Sheik Jarrah neighborhood in Jerusalem. Much like the housing dispute case posted by Abudiab, the Sheik Jarrah cases are “not about forcing [Palestinian-Arab] families from their home. [Sheik Jarrah] involves a years-long process of owners suing tenants whose leases have expired, or in a few cases, suing squatters with no tenancy rights at all; the owners are simply asking for their rent to be paid.”

Neither the timing of the “religion of peace” Ramadan period nor the truth about the housing dispute stopped Hamas and Arabs unprovoked violence against Jews. Hamas fired over a thousand missiles and rockets into Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Ashdod, Beersheba, Ashkelon, communities bordering on Gaza, killing Israeli citizens, wounding many others, destroying properties, setting the Trans-Israel pipeline on fire and terrorizing countless Israelis. On Monday, Hamas managed to kill 17 Palestinians with their own rockets falling short and landing in Gaza.

Along with the unprovoked missile attacks there was an escalation in Arab pogroms in Jerusalem, Lod, Jaffa, Bat Yam, Haifa, and Tiberias, destroying Jewish properties and setting fire to multiple synagogues, attacking worshipers at the Western Wall with rocks, and attempting to lynch Jewish motorists.

Back in Nashville, The Tennessean paper published a factless and arrogant op-ed about the violence in Israel and the “destruction of sacred places” written by Imam Ossama Bahloul resident scholar at the Islamic Center of Nashville. For example, Bahloul suggests that “Jewish settlers” have caused violence at the Al Aqsa mosque while deliberately ignoring the attack on Jerusalem Day celebrants with “slabs, stones and fireworks” which had been stockpiled by Palestinians at the Al Aqsa mosque for this purpose:

“Critics of Israel, and the international media, have portrayed the recent clashes on the Temple Mount, which Muslims call Haram esh-Sharif, as if Israel had attacked the mosques or violated their sanctity. In fact, Israeli riot police entered the holy site to stop Palestinians from launching new attacks from the compound after they did so after prayers on the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan last week.”

2009 Murfreesboro – Bahloul protesting “war in Gaza’ in support of Hamas

Will biased media, revisionist history narratives and irrational hatred of Jews and Israel make certain places in Tennessee less safe for Jewish people? Jewish people are being openly attacked by pro-Palestinian thugs shouting Allah Akbar and BLM rioters have targeted Jewish neighborhoods. In Tennessee, AMAC’s program attacking Zionism didn’t hesitate to feature Highlander Center director Ash-Lee Henderson who is all in with BLM anti-Semitism.

How far do they plan to take it in Tennessee?

AMAC attacks Zionism
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Radical TN Teachers Misleading Parents and Advocating Breaking the Law.

 

Parents if you don’t pay attention to what your children are learning in public schools, you are the problem.

 It does not matter if you have a D or R on your voter registration card, it matters that your child will be learning to hate others and themselves.

In an article penned By Cathryn Stout of TN Chalkbeat, teachers were asked how they will respond to recent legislation that prohibits teaching the tenets of Critical Race Theory, despite knowing “If the commissioner of education finds that an LEA or public charter school knowingly violates the prohibitions described in (1)-(11), then this amendment requires the commissioner to withhold state funds, in an amount determined by the commissioner, from the LEA or public charter school until the LEA or public charter school provides evidence to the commissioner that the LEA or public charter school is no longer in violation.”   

These are a few of those responses by the teachers interviewed.

“It will make it harder for me in the classroom as most of my students face racism and discrimination in this country. Good teachers should be teaching the truth, which is that every system in the U.S. is built on racism and white supremacy.”  — Travis Vaughn, math teacher at LEAD Southeast High School, Nashville

“To be frank, the bill will not make it harder for my personal classroom because I plan to ignore it. Who’s going to enforce it? This is a bill that viciously favors white children and ignores the needs of children of color. All the reported reasons I read that were given by the lawmakers were to protect the feelings of white children, with no thought or concern to what is best for society as a whole or for children of color.” — Liz Jarvis, English as a second language teacher, Cornerstone Prep, Memphis

“The Republican Party has focused on ‘cancel culture’ quite a bit recently, but this bill is its own form of ‘cancel culture’ that goes entirely too far. History teachers can not adequately teach about the Trail of Tears, the Civil War, and the Civil Rights Movement. English teachers will have to avoid teaching almost any text by an African American author because many of them mention racism to various extents. Even classics written by white authors like ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ and ‘Huckleberry Finn’ will now be off limits.

“Both history and English content standards require students to think critically. Teachers are evaluated based on our ability to inspire critical thinking. How are we supposed to teach the standards and have our students think critically when we can only present and discuss one side of an issue?” — Mike Stein, English and English as a second language teacher at Coffee County High School, Manchester

                                                                                   Mike Stein- Coffee County TN teacher

The blatant disregard by those charged with teaching our children is not only disgraceful but dangerous. Not only is it putting your child’s school in danger of losing funding, but further instills a sense of violating laws is ok to do if you disagree with them.

This no longer is about education, it is about radical, social justice activist teachers spewing their ideology to your child.  It no longer is about the basics, laying a proper foundation for children to excel and move on, it is about  teachers who vomit their personal opinions on students that are young and impressionable.

The very idea some teachers feel it’s their right to degrade, and humiliate white children because the trend says you’re a racist if you don’t, is frightening and alarming.  It is vital parents become involved in their child’s education and demand these politically charged topics be left to the parents to discuss, not teachers.

Statements from teachers like the ones above should be questioned and disciplinary actions should be taken. Not only are they misleading, but would be in violation of state law. Teachers need to held accountable for breaking those laws, as anyone else should be.

The following is what the Tennessee law prohibits, and allows.

The Tennessee General Assembly has passed legislation that prohibits the following:

 (1) One race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex;

 

(2) An individual, by virtue of the individual’s race or sex, is inherently privileged, racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or subconsciously;

 

(3) An individual should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment because of the individual’s race or sex;

 

(4) An individual’s moral character is determined by the individual’s race or sex;

 

(5) An individual, by virtue of the individual’s race or sex, bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex;

 

(6) An individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or another form of psychological distress solely because of the individual’s race or sex;

 

(7) A meritocracy is inherently racist or sexist, or designed by a particular race or sex to oppress members of another race or sex;

 

(8) This state or the United States is fundamentally or irredeemably racist or sexist;

 

(9) Promoting or advocating the violent overthrow of the United States government;

 

(10) Promoting division between, or resentment of, a race, sex, religion, creed, nonviolent political affiliation, social class, or class of people; or

 

(11) Ascribing character traits, values, moral or ethical codes, privileges, or beliefs to a race or sex, or to an individual because of the individual’s race or sex.

 

This bill DOES NOT PROHIBIT this:

 

(1) The history of an ethnic group, as described in textbooks and instructional materials adopted in accordance with present law concerning textbooks and instructional materials;

 

(2) The impartial discussion of controversial aspects of history;

 

(3) The impartial instruction on the historical oppression of a particular group of people based on race, ethnicity, class, nationality, religion, or geographic region; or

 

(4) Historical documents that are permitted under present law, such as the national motto, the national anthem, the state and federal constitutions, state and federal laws, and supreme court decisions.

 

Parents it is time to take control of what your child learns, and who is teaching them. Children are the future, and can either be productive, good citizens or continue to dismantle and destroy the greatest country on earth. What will you do?

 

 

 

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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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Illegal Immigration Spread in Tennessee

It’s true that Tennessee’s illegal immigration problem is anchored in Davidson and Shelby counties. These blue urbans are run by “progressive”, ie, socialists who endorse Biden’s agenda to flood Southern states with legal immigrants like refugees and illegal aliens.

The most recent available numbers as of February 2020, from the data trackers show that among urban counties, Davidson was tracked to 5,355 removable illegal alien cases beating out Shelby county with 3,875 cases.

Removal proceedings happen in immigration courts and is an administrative process whereby an administrative law judge determines whether an illegal alien is deportable or for some reason, gets to stay.

It’s also true that the Tennessee General Assembly’s drift to center (the Senate may already have crossed the line to center-left), enabled by a Chamber of Commerce and refugee expansionist governor, willingly ignore the growing problem and cost of illegal immigrant numbers in the state.

costs calculated in 2017 – how much higher today?

Well surprise, surprise, or not, but illegal immigration has already spread to rural Tennessee. Bedford county was reported to have 477 individuals in removal proceedings and Sevier 951 cases.

The status of Bean Station’s (East Tennessee) illegal alien community is not entirely clear after the 2018 ICE raid at the Southeast Provision meat-packing plant. What was reported, however, was the community’s protectionist attitude to illegal immigration.

Aiding and abetting illegal immigrants to Tennessee, are well-funded groups like the TN Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC), Justice for Our Neighbors, Latino Memphis, Conexion Americas, La Paz (Chattanooga), and Centro Hispano (Knoxville) among others.

 

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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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AMAC Helps Media Spread COVID Vaccine Misinformation

Nashville’s Fox17 has a long history of pandering to the Islamist community in Nashville and helping them to disseminate intentionally misleading information.

In 2014, American Muslim Advisory Council (AMAC) co-founder and then board member Kurdish refugee Drost Kokoye, complained to Fox 17 reporter Sky Arnold who ran a story about a pro-Israel pamphlet included at a high school cultural fair event. Of course Arnold’s “story” cast the complaining Muslims as offended victims.

Turns out however, that the pamphlet’s content was verified by multiple Middle East sources and Hillary Clinton, as being accurate.

Agitator and deceiver-in-chief Kokoye posted this anti-Semitic laced message about the allegedly offending pamphlet:

This past Easter Sunday Fox17 ran a piece by “reporter” Anthony Glover titled “Muslims in Nashville receive vaccination in show of equal distribution of vaccine.”

Turns out this Fox17 piece is likewise without any factual basis. The FACT is that as of March 31, 2021, any resident of Davidson County over the age of 16, can get a COVID vaccine. In FACT, people can even go to certain pharmacies and get the free vaccine.

Sabina Mohyuddin, executive director of the hyper political organization AMAC herself admits that Muslims in the area are “hesitant” to get the vaccine, accounting for the low numbers in the Muslim community.

In February, Erika Glover, (wife of Anthony???), another Fox17 “reporter” did a piece titled “Questioning vaccine equity: Reality remains bleak for minorities in Nashville.”

Sadly for anyone who watches or reads Fox17 “news” reports, the FACTS do not support the husband and wife (?) propaganda team’s disinformation campaign.

In December 2020, months before either of the Glovers’ stories, Dr. James Hildreth, president and CEO of the historically black Meharry Medical College in Nashville, admitted that distrust of the vaccine accounts for the low COVID vaccination rates among minorities. is because they don’t trust the vaccine.

If either Glover wanted to report factually instead of trying to create a narrative of health-related racism, they could have reported about the on-going efforts by a group called Tennessee Stands which has been leading efforts to have freedom of choice regarding the COVID vaccine.

But in the agenda driven media, everyone knows that non-minority groups wanting to not be forced to take the COVID vaccine, doesn’t fit the leftist media narrative.

From its very beginning, AMAC, betted by the media, has spewed deceit and misinformation to the general public and to the Muslim community they claim to represent. Coincident with AMAC organizing, its founders, with help from the media, knowingly and deliberately issued distorted and untrue statements about a bill introduced in the state legislature.

The anti-terrorism material support bill specifically said that it only applied to individuals deliberately supporting the commission of a terrorist act and specifically stated that it did not apply to “the peaceful practice of any religion.”

The bill defined the term “sharia,” precisely the way jihadist terrorists defined it because this was a bill to prevent terrorist acts by cutting off sources of support. The bill, now a state law, prohibits using religious justification as a defense. This is the very same argument made by self-declared peaceful followers of Islam, to wit, that terrorist acts committed by ISIS jihadists or others in the name of their religion, does not represent Islam and that these terrorists are not true followers of the religion.

And yet, in keeping with standard leftist tactics, Islamist agitators and AMAC organizers, with no basis in fact, told members of their communities that legislators were trying to make following sharia a felony in Tennessee. Had AMAC organizers had any respect for the truth, they would have had to admit that supporters of this bill were actually trying to insulate peaceful religious observers from being lumped in with violent religious extremists.

As to the COVID vaccine – it’s about CHOICE, not equity.

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You Pay for Tennessee House Members’ Misfeasance on Illegal Immigration

“Misfeasance” as applied to a politician, is defined as “the performance of an official duty in an improper or unlawful manner or with an improper or corrupt motive.”

Conflict-of-interest driven voting on public policy likely qualifies as misfeasance. It’s especially egregious and harmful knowing that Tennessee is not immune from the crush of illegal alien economic migrants being ferried into the U.S. by the Biden administration.

In addition to the 67,000 illegal alien “essential workers” in Tennessee, and the 31,000 illegal aliens reported to be living and working in Davidson County, and the 135,000 estimated by FAIR, and the $793.4 million dollars illegal immigration costs Tennessee taxpayers, there is the issue of the Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) arriving in the state.

Over the past six years, just under 7,500 UACs have been routed to Tennessee. The overwhelming majority, 72%, are between 15 – 17 years old and predominantly male. Recent estimates expect at least 184,000 UACs to arrive in the U.S. this year.

Illegal immigration hurts low-skilled American workers and according to the Project 21 Black Leadership Network, “especially Black Americans who often share the same communities and services as illegal immigrants –[and should] not be forced to subsidize people who are not in the United States legally.’”

Two leading examples of legislators who make it easier for illegal aliens to find work in Tennessee are Rep. John Holsclaw and Rep. Clark Boyd.

Holsclaw is from Elizabethton and represents Unicoi and parts of Carter Counties. He’s been in the state legislature since 2015. Boyd is from Lebanon and represents Cannon County and parts of Wilson and DeKalb counties. He’s been in the state legislature since 2017.

In the 2019-2020 session these two derailed Rep. Bruce Griffey’s bill that would have made it more difficult for businesses to hire illegal aliens. During this session Holsclaw chaired the subcommittee and Boyd chaired the full committee which handled Griffey’s bill.

In fact, Boyd, with agreement from the NFIB and the TN Chamber of Commerce, drafted the amendment that essentially nullified the effect of Griffey’s bill. Griffey’s bill originally required employers with 6 or more employees to use E-verify; Boyd’s amendment increased that to 25 employees. Freshman legislator Griffey probably desperate to pass a bill, swallowed the RINO “incrementalist” approach to policy and accepted a bad amendment.

It is common knowledge that the 25 employee threshold would not apply to the vast majority of small businesses in Tennessee.

As an aside, during the committee discussion, Rep. Mike Sparks (R-Smyrna) expressed worry about the fines levied on businesses that get caught hiring illegal alien workers. WAAAH! And Rep. Rush Bricken (R-Tullahoma) then and now continues to wring his hands trying to figure out how to avoid taking any action against illegal immigration in Tennessee.

After beating back Griffey’s original bill, Holsclaw and Boyd both received the “coveted” NFIB “Guardian of Small Business” award and of course, NFIB campaign donations.

NFIB and Holsclaw

While the Senate never moved the companion bill, Griffey’s bill with the non-effective 25 threshold passed the House making its supporters look as if they were taking meaningful action against illegal immigration in Tennessee.

NFIB and Boyd

Even with an ineffective bill, decepticon Republicans Pat Marsh, Patsy Hazlewood, Kent Calfee, Charlie Baum, Sam Whitson, and Mark White voted against the bill. Even more anemic Republicans Michael Curcio, Curtis Johnson, Jerome Moon, Brandon Ogles, Iris Rudder, Kevin Vaughan, and Ryan Williams, didn’t bother to vote.

It should be remembered that several of these legislators are among the worst illegal immigration protectionists in the Tennessee legislature. Patsy Hazlewood went so far as to try to kill the sanctuary city bill so she could help protect illegal aliens who commit crimes in Tennessee.

This year, when Griffey again tried to lower the E-verify employee threshold to to 6 employees, Boyd and Kevin Vaughn led the pack to kill the bill in subcommittee. Speaker Cameron Sexton subsequently abused his authority to prevent further discussion related to the problem of illegal immigration in the state as a way to protect his Republican caucus from being accountable to legal Tennessee voters and legal Tennessee workers.

Shamefully, Tennessee’s RINO approach to illegal immigration is at odds with a recent NYTimes opinion piece written by the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico. He puts it bluntly, in The Real Reason for the Border Crisis, is that “no one is holding American employers to account for their willingness to hire millions of unauthorized immigrants.”

The “no one” includes Tennessee’s Republican legislators.

 

 

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TN House Says Don’t Call Us Conservatives!

March is the month that Tennessee House members shifted remaking the state into high gear – illegal alien workers are welcome, racism is a public health threat and made the case for more RINOs to be elected!

Cameron Sexton and RINO Central 

House members have twice elected Cameron Sexton (R-Crossville) to lead as Speaker knowing that he is a card carrying member of RINO Central, aka, the Southland Advantage fundraising firm whose stable of clients include super-RINO Steve Dickerson (voted to support ballot harvesting), Eddie Mannis and La Raza Randy Boyd.

Even if the company Sexton keeps doesn’t concern Conservative voters, his choice of Southland given its traitorous, scandalous and unethical conflict-of-interest ridden history, should.

When Taylor and Walker Ferrell, Southland’s husband and wife team, launched their political shop in 2015, both were employed by and embedded in the Tennessee Republican Party – Walker was the Political Director of the state party, and Taylor was employed as the Interim Finance Director.

All three of Southland’s first stable of Republican clients were recruited to oust proven incumbent conservatives.

Flash in the pan Grant Starrett ran against Rep. Scott DeJarlais, Beth Cox ran against then state Rep. Courtney Rogers, and Will Lockhart ran against then state Rep. Judd Matheny.

All three of Southland’s candidates lost their primary races.

2016 was a busy year for Sexton – he sponsored the National Popular Vote bill and was rumored to have been testing the caucus waters for a bid for Speaker. While it took him four more years to ascend to Speaker, he did so bringing along his tainted perspective of how representative government is supposed to work.

Given his history and affiliations, it’s no doubt that the cowardly Republican caucus suspected that a good RINO like Sexton would be willing to abuse his authority and shield them from inviting illegal aliens to work in Tennessee. Dropping the gavel before any member could even turn on their microphone to offer a second to Griffey’s Rule 53 Motion followed by stripping Griffey of his committee assignments, is a too obvious move to protect caucus RINOs from Chamber and NFIB wrath.

It wasn’t that long ago that Speaker Pro Tem Pat Marsh, an illegal alien protectionist, supported awarding in-state college tuition to illegal aliens because, “I go into the local schools and see these immigrants in leadership roles in our schools. They’re the star athletes. They’re the star students. They deserve a chance to move forward in their lives …”

Tennessee’s doctors are racist

Earlier this month, in true BLM-style, the House Health Subcommittee passed a joint resolution affirming that all Tennessee doctors are racists. Only two Republicans voted against it in the full House committee and even though it’s going back for another round in the full committee, it’s a safe bet that whatever gets passed there again, will be passed by the cowering Republican caucus.

No doubt the even more liberal Senate Republicans will agree and “recognize racism as a public health threat.”

The resolution in question is centered around the pro-abortion American Medical Association’s (AMA) declarations regarding an alleged connection between structural racism and public health.

Like other medical venues which are “laundering their progressivism” under the guise of public health, the AMA is also pushing the climate change. During the Trump administration, the AMA issued a statement criticizing the protective separation of children and adults after crossing the border illegally. There’s no record of the AMA speaking against the same policy practiced during the Obama administration.

House Caucus – we need more fake conservatives

The same divide between Conservative and Establishment Republicans in D.C. is also happening in our state legislature. How did we end up with a governor who campaigned as a “conservative outsider” but whose policies and agenda for Tennessee ignore critical issues like real Constitutional carry and the impact of illegal immigration on Tennessee’s legal workers?

Was anyone else laughing out loud when the American Conservative Union (ACU) ranked the Tennessee General Assembly as the most conservative legislature in the country for a consecutive second year?

But that was in 2017, and A LOT has happened since then including a continued decline in the conservative profile and ACU ranking of Tennessee’s House and Senate.

In 2020, the Senate’s average conservative ranking fell by a full 10 points from the prior year, to 75% while the House fell by 11 points to 78%. The slide of phony conservative legislators into RINO-ism is often subtle and difficult to nail down explicitly; it is best looked at as a downward trend taken in a series of mostly small steps.

For example, when Rep. Jeremy Faison (R-Cosby) ran for the first time in his rural east Tennessee mountain district that includes Cocke, Jefferson, and Greene counties, he labeled himself “the conservative”.

A few terms down the road and “the conservative” Faison pushed for legalizing marijuana medical treatments whichhe said, “has no side effects” as compared to alcohol, relying on the standard canard the left and old burned out hippies have been pushing for decades that marijuana can provide medical benefits.

Was Faison’s idea that marijuana would be Cocke County’s biggest cash crop and the pot growers could just start bottling the oil in the field; “farm to table” would, after all, be in keeping with current trends. It will also legalize the weed industry already in place.

Faison also appears to have taken the RINO road on illegal immigration. In Faison’s now deleted 2016 op-ed he wrote that:  “Two of the three top Republican presidential candidates want 30 million illegal immigrants deported. Many of these illegal immigrants have family members that are citizens. No president will ever deport. Republicans should build a bridge to their community with concrete, achievable solutions.” This is probably why he filed to be a Marco Rubio delegate in 2016 due to Rubio’s position to amnesty illegal aliens.

And now for a flashback laugh of the day that no one could seriously fabricate – Faison’s bill making it legal for Tennesseans to raise and sell skunks Creating a ready-made market for pot pet specific products like those being sold in California?

If you’re thinking House member conservative sell-out, know that Faison is not alone.