Tag: Bill Lee

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No More State Money For the San Fran on the Cumberland

Nashville’s far left mayor and city council are working overtime to be the San Francisco of the South.

“Our Revolution – Nashville & Mid TN” is intimately involved trying to spread the insurrection and overthrow of Nashville outward. They endorsed and helped get elected former American Muslim Advisory Council (AMAC) and socialist, Zulfat Suara, to the Metro Nashville Council.

While Suara was leading AMAC, her former co-chair and AMAC co-founder Daoud Abudiab was leading TIRRC (TN Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition), and both groups joined with Black Lives Matter to “strategize, dream and build [their] movement for 2016.”

And there is very little in their way to stop Nashville’s full transformation.

In fact, a legitimate argument can be made that Bill Lee and his leadership SNAFUs is abetting Nashville’s agenda.

For starters, when Tennessee’s COVID lockdowns began, Bill Lee decided to give Nashville’s far left mayor free reign to do whatever he wanted. Predictably, Mayor Cooper followed other Democrat run cities and put Nashville on a seemingly perpetual lockdown.

Except of course when it was time to host a mass protest and invite all elected officials to attend – no social distancing required!

Cooper was cautioned by other leaders that similar protests in other blue cities had in short order, turned violent and destructive. Neither Cooper nor Metro police were prepared for the inevitable which wasn’t hard to predict especially since the Metro police department has been effectively neutered and is now under the thumb of the anti-police-pro-open-borders special interest groups running the Community Oversight Board (COB).

AMAC was an aggressive proponent of the charter amendment that made the anti-police COB a formal and $1 million dollar funded arm of the Metro Nashville government. AMAC board member Drost Kokoye was a lead organizer against police while she attended UT Knoxville.

Cop haters policing the police combined with low pay has put Metro’s police force at over a 100 person deficit.

Protest organizer Prophetess Venita Lewis admitted that the violence, and wanton destruction is “happening all across the county. The protests are not gonna end peacefully” and that “the rioting will not stop when associated with Floyd’s death.”

Bill Lee stood back and watched while Nashville was looted and burned waiting until Cooper asked for help.

In November 2019, the Tennessee Comptroller’s Office reviewed and rejected Nashville’s budget, threatening to take over if the city couldn’t figure out how to address the years of irresponsible over-spending. According to the Comptroller, “Metro’s expenses have outpaced the city’s revenue growth since 2013, according to Wilson. To accommodate those increasing expenses, city leaders have been depleting Metro’s available cash and reserve funds, which are down 24% and 16% respectively.”

Then came the March tornadoes and COVID followed by the BLM protest turned riot.

Between 2015 and 2020, the state has given Metro Nashville $99,581,919 in fast track economic development grants. In 2017 and 2018, the state rewarded the out-of-control and irresponsible spending and illegal-alien-protectionist government in Davidson County with over $28 million dollars to recruit Philips North America and Alliance Bernstein.

Cooper’s 32% property tax increase isn’t going to exempt people who’ve been and may still be out of work since his COVID lockdown started. Nor will it exempt people whose home or business was destroyed by the tornadoes. Nor is Cooper’s tax increase going to exempt the 30 business owners whose properties were vandalized by the protest rioters.

Is there any rational reason that any more state economic development funding should be given to Nashville? Does spending more state tax dollars to help the San Fran on the Cumberland benefit the state in any conceivable way?

No. But the decision to steer the economic development money to Nashville comes from the administration, not the legislature.

So San Fran on the Cumberland probably has nothing to worry about. Remember, the state’s chief executive officer, aka, the governor, had no problem sending money to the campaigns of leftists Megan Barry, Karl Dean and Phil Bredesen or rushing to meet with AMAC.

 

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The Take Down of Tennessee By Its Own Government?

Bill Lee chose to weaponize the use of COVID testing results against Tennessee’s citizens instead of recommending or ensuring that law enforcement had adequate PPE with which to protect themselves. Sadly for Tennesseans, the governor didn’t appear to realize that his justification for providing the names as a means to protect law enforcement, didn’t hold water as to asymptomatic individuals with whom law enforcement might encounter. https://www.fox8live.com/2020/05/10/law-enforcement-agencies-able-access-names-addresses-tennesseans-testing-positive-covid-/

The governor didn’t rescind this absurd move until after bi-partisan pushback from legislators.

It appears, however, that the practice is on-going in Nashville compliments of the governor allowing 6 counties which includes Davidson County, from the start of COVID lockdowns, to run their own operations with their own rules.

The legislature has begun to address the weaponizing of COVID as a means to the government unconstitutionally gorging itself with power.

Tennesseans better hope that legislators very quickly begin tamping down on contact tracing. Watch the video linked here and decide for yourself.

http:// https://vimeo.com/421657568

 

It looks like Bill Lee has already endorsed contact tracing but it remains unknown how far he’ll run with it.

Socialists elected to Metro Nashville Council and Knoxville City Council and council members openly supporting socialists, are likely cheering him on.

           

 

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Governor Lee Lets Nashville Government Continue to Spin Out of Control

Between being broke with big debt service, and an insatiable blue wall of protection for illegal aliens and resettling refugees reliant on public assistance programs like TennCare, Bill Lee continues to abet the Nashville island of resistance which threatens the stability of Tennessee.

In November 2019, the Tennessee Comptroller’s Office reviewed and rejected Nashville’s budget, threatening to take over if they couldn’t figure out how to address the years of irresponsible over-spending. According to the Comptroller, “Metro’s expenses have outpaced the city’s revenue growth since 2013, according to Wilson. To accommodate those increasing expenses, city leaders have been depleting Metro’s available cash and reserve funds, which are down 24% and 16% respectively.”

Davidson County is pretty much the cash cow for the state’s different tax collections.

Today, despite the multi-millions of dollars invested in Nashville by state taxpayers, the city is broke and in debt. Today, Nashville has no rainy day fund and it’s debt service consumes a mammoth portion of revenue. The mayor is proposing a sky-high property tax increase, the pro-illegal-immigration-mayor-in-waiting Bob Mendes who chairs the council’s budget committee, is proposing an even bigger tax increase, and socialist council member Zulfat Suara has suggested increasing the county’s debt burden by borrowing more money.

During the worst public health and economic crises faced by Tennessee, Bill Lee has taken a hands-off approach to Nashville letting its far left mayor and city council continue their inept and destructive management of the county.

Lee made this decision even though the state’s liberal Attorney General opined that state law allows the governor to exercise broad power over the local governments during emergencies. Instead, Lee agreed to giving names of COVID positive people to law enforcement.

The Nashville Metro Council now wants to require whoever they determine are essential workers, to wear masks. Will that get another thumbs up from the governor?

While the majority of Tennessee counties were released from the governor’s “safer at home” order on April 30th, Lee allowed Chattanooga, Memphis, Nashville and three other counties to make their own decisions. Nashville’s mayor is taking an overly long route to reopening the county in a four-phased plan with each phase mandated to achieve his seal of approval before moving to the next phase.

WalletHub’s calculated (using U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data) that unemployment in Nashville increased 5% since January 2020 due to COVID and was at over 7% in March 2020 as compared to March 2019. Nashville, Chattanooga and Memphis were also ranked among cities with the highest unemployment increases due to COVID. 

Nashville’s we-hate-police Community Oversight Board’s recent report documents that 31,000 illegal aliens are living and working in Davidson County.

WalletHub’s state rankings of COVID unemployment increases, put Tennessee at 22 since the start of COVID in March, and at 18 of being the most impacted for unemployment since May 4, 2020. 

It’s estimated that over 8,000 illegal aliens who have qualified for work permits through Obama’s unconstitutional DACA program are living and working in Tennessee.

A 2017 Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), estimate puts the cost of illegal immigration to Tennessee taxpayers at $793 million dollars. The NAE report says that illegal aliens come to Tennessee to work.

The alleged non-partisan Partnership for a New American Economy (NAE) which churns out reports and “data” advocating for increased legal immigration and amnesty for illegal aliens because these workforces are essential to the American economy. Their 2016 report (latest available), states that as of 2015, approximately 26,634 “likely refugees” were residing in Tennessee.

NAE, the Koch brothers Americans for Prosperity Tennessee lobbyist and TIRRC also like to push the false economic-enhancing narrative of legal immigrants like refugees and illegal aliens. Tennessee’s AFP lobbyist Tori Venable and the leader of LIBRE, the Koch’s “premier pro-mass immigration organization,” co-wrote an oped titled, “Common ground is possible even when it comes to immigration.”

And they chose to focus on Nashville “because it’s a hub for tourism, commerce and innovation.”

Nashville is a hub alright and right now that hub is broke with high unemployment and “is projected to lose $470 million in revenue over the next 16 months, including more than $200 million in the next fiscal year, which starts July 1.”

Tennessee’s Comptroller appears to be monitoring Nashville but it’s not clear whether the governor and/or his advisors are reading the Metro tea leaves.

Rescinding his consent for continued refugee resettlement which is expected to begin again very soon, would make unemployed Tennesseans have a small measure of confidence that their needs are first before Bill Lee’s personal agenda.

Governor Lee has assured legislators that they will have revenue data to help them decide about budget cuts when they reconvene for a very very short session beginning June 1. Lee’s commitment to continuing refugee resettlement means that the costs of the federal program will continue to be involuntarily transferred to state and local governments.

If the governor can’t be counted on to put Tennessee citizens first, then the legislature can by passing the Gant/Bell bill which will put the decision-making about refugee resettlement in the hands of the legislature.

The Speaker of the House and Senate will decide which bills will be heard.

Contact Lt. Gov. Randy McNally 615-741-6806 and House Speaker Cameron Sexton 615-741-2343 and ask them to pass the Gant/Bell bill.

Call the Governor and tell him to start working with the legislators and not against them and the voters who gave him the privilege of serving them – 741-2001 or email him https://www.tn.gov/governor/contact-us.html

 

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West TN Republican Running for State Senator – Paid Advocate for Refugee Resettlement?

Republican Senator Dolores Gresham is not running for re-election.

Page Walley, who works for an organization involved with refugee resettlement is running for Gresham’s Senate seat.

Page Walley is not new to the state legislature. He served in the House from 1990 – 2000. He has a pretty long resume of holding different positions including as a former Commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services.

Walley is a licensed clinical psychologist turned lobbyist and works as the President/Chief Public Policy and Community Engagement Officer for St. Francis Ministries. Walley’s job is to advocate for whatever services St. Francis wants to provide and get paid for. Walley and his team lobby in D.C. and at the state and local level. St. Francis maintains a satellite office in D.C.

From the looks of the St. Francis’ latest available 990 (in 2017) – they spend boo-coo dollars on lobbying, like well over $1.5 million.

St. Francis Ministries is an “organization rooted in the Episcopal faith” providing services in several U.S. states and in locations overseas, including refugee resettlement services in Kansas.

The St. Francis Migration Ministries is “a partner and affiliate of Episcopal Migration Ministries (EMM), the refugee resettlement program of the Episcopal Church.” EMM – Episcopal Migration Ministries, is one of the nine national refugee resettlement profiteers which contract with the U.S. State Department.

As tracked and reported by Refugee Resettlement Watch, EMM is 99.5% funded with taxpayer dollars. That means that you the taxpayer help pay the salaries of St. Francis lobbyists like Walley. Just think, if he wins the Senate seat, taxpayers can double their payments! 

And like the other refugee resettlement profiteers, they have opposed President Trump’s reduction in refugee admission numbers. Maybe because the federal refugee program has historically been a cash cow for NGOs, EMM goes after any opposition to refugee resettlement. After Texas said no to continued refugee resettlement in response to the President’s Executive Order, the Episcopal Church “condemn[ed] Governor Abbott’s decision.

Unlike some of the other federal refugee contractors, EMM and its Government Relations (ie, lobbyist), are part of the Episcopal Church – “The Office of Government Relations represents the policy priorities of The Episcopal Church to the U.S. government in Washington, D.C. We aim to shape and influence policy and legislation on critical issues, highlighting the voices and experiences of Episcopalians and Anglicans globally. All policy positions are based on General Convention and Executive Council resolutions, the legislative and governing bodies of the Church.”

Walley’s job description sounds all warm and fuzzy and his campaign issues which pretty much sound like everyone else’s, include the usual anti-illegal immigration and pro legal immigration.

It’s not a far stretch to say though that Walley’s campaign position to “strengthen legal immigration” is directly related to his job with St. Francis. Not much different than Bill Lee’s personal agenda to shove the refugee resettlement program on all of Tennessee’s counties.

It also means that Walley is not likely to support any efforts by the Tennessee General Assembly to address the issue of the federal government forcing Tennessee to pay for refugee resettlement costs. Sen. Steve Dickerson whose campaign was “I’m a different kind of Republican,” was the only Republican Senator to vote against suing the federal government for forcing the state to pay the federal government’s share of costs for the refugee program.

Gresham was first elected in 2003, to the House where she served for 6 years, and then was elected to the Senate in 2009, where she will have served for 12 years by the time she retires her seat in November.

Could be happy times for Governor Lee if a like-minded refugee program expansionist won the Senate seat.

Voters in Walley’s district need to get busy asking him questions.

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What Comes First? Bill Lee’s Personal Refugee Agenda or the Suffering of Tennessean’s Health & Ability to Make a Living?

For Tennesseans personally impacted by the deadly and destructive March tornadoes and/or the deadly and devastating COVID-19 crisis, there is no question about what need to be Bill Lee’s priorities.

Bill Lee needs to retract his consent to continue bringing refugees to Tennessee. In fact, he shouldn’t hesitate to write that letter today to his good buddy Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Lee’s personal agenda for refugee resettlement has no proper place in any plan to help restore Tennesseans impacted by the tornadoes and COVID-19.

Helping Tennesseans recover and get back on their feet comes first. This includes restoring economic vibrancy to the state’s economy. It includes doing everything in our state’s power to prevent the 15 economically distressed counties which “rank among the 10 percent most economically distressed counties in the nation,” from slipping further away from us.

At last count, almost 250,000 Tennesseans have filed unemployment claims but with Lee extending the shutdown for several more weeks, don’t be surprised if the number of unemployed needing help increases.

So, will more people in Tennessee now qualify for TennCare in addition to the working poor on whose behalf the liberals and progressives have been pushing Medicaid expansion? Did Lee’s Medicaid block grant plan account for these contingencies?

Small businesses have been decimated by the COVID shutdown. And even larger businesses have laid off employees. How long will it take for them to gear back up and what happens to the people who are forced to wait or whose job is eliminated?

Regardless of what Lee and company tell us about refugees, the fact remains that they use cash welfare and TennCare as soon as they arrive. They also compete for jobs that out-of-work Tennesseans are willing and need to take.

This was the very real situation in 2009, documented by the Wall Street Journal in Job Fight: Immigrants vs. Locals, about what happened at the Tyson’s plant in Shelbyville.

Economic desperation during the 2007 – 2009 recession didn’t stop either Bush or Obama from importing large numbers of refugees just like the ones lining up in Shelbyville to compete with local residents who needed those jobs. Burmese refugees from Nashville, Florida and Idaho were lined up for the Tyson jobs, along with “several vanloads of Asian and African applicants from Nashville” brought there by “churches and refugee resettlement agencies.”

During these recession years, 3,300 refugees were resettled in Tennessee, not including refugees who moved into Tennessee from other states. The largest groups being initially resettled in Tennessee during this time were 807 Burmese, 575 Iraqis, 463 Burundis, 452 Somalis and 393 Bhutanese.

The data that is reported does not reflect the increase in numbers due to chain migration when resettled refugees apply to bring family members to join them.

Any current plan for Tennessee’s economic recovery should also account for the thriving illegal alien population which groups like TIRRC (TN Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition) also call “refugees” in a deliberate effort to confuse the public.

A coalition of groups including TIRRC, Stand Up Nashville, The Equity Alliance, Memphis For All, Tennessee Justice Center, Service Employees International Union Local 205, A Better Balance, Chattanooga Area Labor Council, AFL-CIO, Central Labor Council of Memphis and West TN, AFL-CIO, Central Labor Council of Nashville and Middle TN, AFL-CIO, Chattanooga in Action for Love, Equality and Benevolence (CALEB), Nashville Organized for Action and Hope (NOAH), Southeast Laborers’ District Council, Workers Interfaith Network and Knoxville City Council Movement…

basically the state’s most left-leaning groups, sent a letter to the Governor requesting what amounts to the Pelosi/Schumer plan to steal the 2020 election among other things, also included a request for Lee to “use emergency powers to suspend specific state laws, including those that limit localities from requiring employers to provide paid sick days and repeal anti-sanctuary cities measures to ensure immigrants feel safe getting medical treatment.” 

Long before the COVID-19 pandemic hit Tennessee, there were justifiable grounds for Governor Lee to retract his state-wide consent for refugee resettlement.

Chief among the reasons was the fact that he did not comply with the directives of President Trump’s Executive Order. Instead, Bill Lee without consulting the state legislature or any county leadership, forced his personal agenda for resettling refugees on the entire state. At the First Tuesday meeting the Governor claimed that counties defer to the state’s consent for refugee resettlement. One attendee described Lee’s version as “the counties are at the mercy of the state.”

Even without Lee’s help, Nashville and Knoxville are already ranked in the top 100 cities for refugee resettlement per capita. Three days before the Governor “urged” schools to close, federal refugee contractor Bridge Refugee Services announced that they were “welcoming several new refugees families to Knoxville this month.” The State Department’s refugee resettlement reporting site, however, shows that 13 refugees resettled Nashville and 1 in Chattanooga since the date of Bridge’s announcement.

The country’s listed in the State Department report for refugees who resettled in Tennessee since March 13, come from countries “with confirmed coronavirus infections.” Too bad, Tennesseans.

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According to the operative federal documents, Bill Lee’s consent for refugee resettlement was only supposed to be for June 1, 2020 through the end of the federal fiscal year, which is September 30, 2020. But Bill Lee made his consent valid for a year from December 18, 2019, the date of his consent letter to Mike Pompeo.

Now’s the time for the Governor to show Tennesseans in no uncertain terms that he puts their physical, psychological, and economic health first. Now’s the time for the Governor to live up to his ethical duties to the citizens of the state he was elected to lead.

Contact Bill Lee and tell him to retract his consent – (615) 741-2001 or email him.

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Are Bill Lee’s Refugees Being Screened for Coronavirus?

All those counties who either said they want refugees or refused to object to Bill Lee’s state-wide consent for importing refugees to Tennessee, might want to quickly rethink their decisions.

The Lee administration has been criticized for not readily sharing Tennessee coronavirus case information and it wouldn’t be a big stretch that if a refugee gets coronavirus, that information will never be made public.

That problem aside, think about it this way – Americans returning to the U.S. from overseas travel are being quarantined and others are self-quarantining if they think they’ve been in contact with anyone who contracted the virus.

But refugees and Afghanis and Iraqis who come on Special Immigrant Visas (SIV) and get treated like refugees in terms of access to public assistance programs, have continued to be admitted to the U.S. and Tennessee.

Remember, it’s the SIV program that Marsha wants to expand for Syrians and Kurds.

Any overseas medical testing for refugees and SIVs, is controlled by the CDC. And even though there is some apparent flex in the guidelines to test for “quarantinable, communicable diseases” which include:

“Quarantinable diseases designated by any Presidential Executive Order. Current diseases include: cholera, diphtheria, infectious tuberculosis, plague, smallpox, yellow fever, viral hemorrhagic fevers, severe acute respiratory syndromes, and influenza caused by novel or re-emergent influenza (pandemic flu).

Events that are reportable as a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) to the World Health Organization (WHO) under the International Health Regulations (IHR) of 2005 (currently polio, smallpox, SARS, influenza, and other public health emergencies of international concern.)”

As of now, there’s been no announcement or news that refugees are in fact, being screened for either exposure to or active coronavirus.

A series of articles in 2016, documented that refugees were being admitted to the U.S. with either latent or active TB, including that “one in four refugees sent to Tennessee carry tuberculosis.”

Per CDC guidelines, a refugee with active TB can get a waiver allowing them to enter the U.S.

It’s little comfort that some doctor in the U.S. is supposed to be responsible for seeing that the person gets treated after coming to the U.S., because according to the Tennessee article, Catholic Charities of Tennessee which runs the state’s refugee program, doesn’t ensure that an affected refugee actually gets the follow-up medical treatment.

Public schools, college and universities are shutting down classes. Conferences and music events are being cancelled and whole office buildings are closing up for a spell.

It’s not clear yet how or what the coronavirus spread will become in Tennessee.

What is clear though, is that even in the face of the devastation caused by the tornadoes and emerging cases of coronavirus, Bill Lee hasn’t retracted his consent to keep bringing refugees to Tennessee.

So county leaders may need to step up and do what the Governor should but isn’t doing.

 

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Should Kurds Who Smuggled Across Borders to Evade Coronavirus Quarantine or Patronized the Hitler Restaurant Be Admitted to US?

 

Breaking today is a report that over 500 Kurds have been smuggled into Kurdistan from Iran to evade the 14-day quarantine imposed because of the outbreak of coronavirus in Iran:

“Iran has become the Middle East epicenter of the outbreak of the virus, with the latest official figures standing at 245 infections and 26 deaths. Iraq has so far confirmed 6 cases of coronavirus, 5 of whom were among Iraqis who had recently visited Iran.” 

Both Sen. Marsha Blackburn and Governor Lee have been adamant about their commitment to the Kurds.

Governor Lee says he won’t “turn his back” on Kurds he claims “walked alongside and fought alongside our soldiers.” This was one of his reasons for consenting to continuing refugee resettlement in Tennessee and ignoring explicit instructions in the President’s Executive Order.

The President said refugee resettlement was supposed to be an opt-in program for the state and the local governments. The President said both the state and local governments each individually had to consent. Instead, Bill Lee said he was consenting for the whole state and as a result, made it an opt-out program for Tennessee counties.

Marsha also believes U.S. taxpayers are beholden to Kurds who claim they were in some way connected, however loosely or remotely, to America’s fight against ISIS. Marsha is so convinced of the need to reward these Kurds that she is co-sponsoring a bill to fast track their arrival to the U.S. whereupon they can qualify for all types of public assistance programs.

A leaked State Department memo indicated that the administration was opposed to Marsha’s bill for a variety of reasons including a concern about super-accelerated vetting, which the State Department wrote, “fails to accommodate vital national security screening.”

Serious questions should be raised about admitting Kurds, Syrians or Iraqis in the face of the region’s outbreak of coronavirus.

Along with that, it seems reasonable to question an individual’s patronage of the “bustling” Hitler Restaurant in Duhok, the capital city of the Kurdistan region.

The restaurant, opened in 2018, kept the Hitler name until deputy head of the Legal Committee in the Kurdistan Parliament, objected. The basis of his objection was not that the restaurant was named for Adolf Hitler, the evil genocidal socialist who murdered, through execution and cremation, over 6 million Jews. No, the legislator’s objection was based on not wanting to offend Germany because “[w]e have to take into account the fact that Germany helped us in the fight against Daesh [ISIS].”

The head of the [Duhok Chamber of Commerce] said that while Hitler may be reviled in Europe, people in the Kurdistan Region are not concerned about him.

“Maybe for the German nation and Europe who suffered a lot under Hitler, it will not be accepted or welcomed,” Ayad Hassan told Rudaw. “But for this region, it will not be an issue to [name a business after] someone who has done good or bad things in history.”

Other Kurds said “it is better to have a restaurant named after Hitler than an alcohol shop.” 

As much as the restaurant owner and others interviewed downplayed the Hitler Restaurant name, it was reported in 2018, that Jews remaining in the Kurdistan region “keep their Jewish identity hidden for fear of persecution.

Even though Nashville Kurdish refugee Drost Kokoye arrived in the U.S. as a young child and was raised here, she has put her hatred of all things Jewish on full display using social media, anti-Jewish campus groups, and pro-HAMAS rallies.

It’s seems reasonable to question why Marsha and Bill Lee insist on romanticizing the Kurds considering the other baggage they’ve brought to Tennessee.

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Can Voters Trust Anything Bill Lee Says?

Like what he has said about refugee resettlement and transgender issues?

Remember, the candidate Bill Lee repeatedly talked about his conservative principles.

He also talked about how he supported Tennessee’s Tenth Amendment lawsuit against the federal government for forcing the state to spend it’s money on resettling refugees after the state said it didn’t want to be part of the program.

But Governor Lee decided he wanted to continue bringing refugees to Tennessee on the state’s dime. So Lee ignored the directions of President Trump’s Executive Order and said he consented for the whole state even though President Trump and the Department of Justice said local governments were supposed to have a say equal to the governor’s.

The DOJ has written this explicitly in their legal brief objecting to the federal contractors’ lawsuit to enjoin the President’s Executive Order:

‘To those ends, Section 2(a) of the Executive Order directs the Secretary of State to develop and implement a process within 90 days of the date of the Executive Order to determine whether the State and locality both consent in writing to the resettlement of refugees within the relevant State and locality, before any refugees are resettled within that State and locality under the U.S. Refugee Resettlement Program.”

On this issue, Lee decided to align himself with the Soros-funded groups like TIRRC, AMAC and the ACLU. These are the groups that predictably and consistently resort to calling conservative voters “haters” because the facts are never on their side.

Candidate Lee also said that it should be up to the local governments to decide whether biological boys and girls who’ve decided to change their gender identity, should be able to use the school bathroom they believe aligns with their new identity.

During a campaign stop Lee was asked to state his position about boys with penises who want to be girls and insist on using the girl’s bathroom, Lee wouldn’t take a position claiming instead, that a statewide policy on transgender bathrooms “is not in the best interest of Tennesseans,” it’s divisive and destructive and…that’s government intervention into areas of life that I don’t think we ought to intervene”… “I’m not advocating for or against a transgender bathroom bill.”

Now there are two versions of where Governor Lee stands on the issue of whether girls who used to be boys, should be allowed to compete against real biological girls on school sport teams.

Today, two different versions of the same article on Bill Lee and the transgender school athlete were posted on Breitbart.

The first version reported that Lee decided to formally align with the LGBTQ and big business lobby and signed onto a letter that functionally establishes a statewide policy that girls who used to be boys, cannot be prohibited from competing against real biological girls on school sports teams.

Within a very suspiciously short period of time, (maybe right after the Governor’s office saw that the cat was out of the bag?), an edited version of the article was posted by Breitbart, eliminating any reference to the Governor’s support for transgender school athletes.

Given the Governor’s evasiveness on transgender bathrooms in schools, for example, it’s understandable that there would be questions and doubts about which version of Breitbart article was accurate as far as Lee’s position on transgender athletes.

The easiest way for the Governor to clear up any confusion is to simply come out, support the referenced bills and send his press release to Breitbart.

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Tennessee Elected Officials – is it the Tenth or TIRRC For You?

TN Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition’s political arm called TIRRC VOTES, has SIX paid lobbyists. TIRRC itself has 14 on staff, Soros money and is running multiple email disinformation campaigns on refugee resettlement, targeting state legislators, local county commissioners and any other locally elected official.

At it’s core, TIRRC’s agenda aligns with that of the New American Economy (NAE, formerly named the Partnership for a New American Economy) outfit, along with the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity (AFP), two big dollar organizations mobilized to push more legal and illegal immigrants into communities. Like TIRRC, NAE and AFP are pushing back on key Trump immigration policies intended to help American citizens prosper.

NAE, AFP and TIRRC like to push the false economic-enhancing narrative of legal immigrants like refugees and illegal aliens. TIRRC also thinks name-calling like xenophobe, racist and hater, is an effective tool to silence anyone who disagrees with their agenda.

While TIRRC’s coalition member the American Muslim Advisory Council (AMAC) parades refugees turned Tennesseans, NAE puts out reports claiming that after living in the U.S. between 16-25 years, refugees are earn “well above the income of refugees who have been here for five years or less.” They also claim that refugees are the answer to reviving aging and declining communities.

TIRRC parrots these same points trying to deflect from the Tennessee issues. With regard to the federal refugee program, Tennessee legislators and advocates have raised the core Constitutional issue of federalism on the one hand, and the role of the state’s legislature to appropriate public money, on the other.

On these important state issues, it appears that Governor Lee has aligned himself lock, stock and barrel with TIRRC as opposed to advocating for the state’s Tenth Amendment rights and Tennessee’s Constitutional powers and duties.

Sadly, too many Tennessee’s county mayors regarding county level decisions on refugee resettlement, are following the governor’s abdication of educated leadership.

Before the President’s Executive Order on refugee resettlement was enjoined (but watch it be upheld in the end), Governor Lee, playing kind for a day, decided that he would issue a decree of YES for the whole state to take refugees and that all the counties in his land would have to defer to his decision.

Recently, Maury County Mayor Andy Ogles, showing fear of disagreeing with the king, said:

“It may be appropriate to wait at least one month to see what the legislature would do,” Ogles said. “We have to do the right thing for the right reasons for the people of this county. That being said, we do have a governor whose help we are going to need if we do want a new agriculture center. I don’t want to unnecessarily slap him in the face when the legislature is going to take action and basically nip this in the bud.”

Andy Ogles, Maury County Mayor, former TN AFP state director

Sounds like Ogles thinks the governor is vindictive. Ogles also forgets that the President’s EO asked the county level executive to make a decision even if Governor Lee chose not to follow the President’s instructions.

It’s not known whether Tennessee state House member Brandon Ogles is related to the Maury County mayor, but if the fact that Brandon Ogles hasn’t signed onto his colleague’s bill, HB1929, is any indication, the Ogles’ politics may unfortunately, be aligned.

State Rep. Brandon Ogles and TN AFP director Tori Venable

Remember, that Andy Ogles was the Tennessee state director for Americans for Prosperity (AFP), a Koch brothers enterprise. Tori Venable, former staffer to pot advocate Rep. Jeremy Faison, is the current Tennessee AFP state director. Venable’s op-ed “

Willing to do anything for a paycheck, Venable and the leader of LIBRE, the Koch’s “premier pro-mass immigration organization,” co-wrote an oped titled, “Common ground is possible even when it comes to immigration.”

And they chose to focus on Nashville “because it’s a hub for tourism, commerce and innovation.”

Never mind that Nashville is also a hub for illegal alien workers, high refugee resettlement numbers, the headquarters of pretty much every radical anti-American government organization (like TIRRC), a chamber of commerce that will do just about anything for a buck, and a city council that will go to any length to protect illegal alien criminals from deportation.

The Koch brothers’ AFP is pro-mass immigration, legal and illegal, pushing amnesty for illegal aliens, “and endless free trade, and oppose the GOP voter-preferred economic nationalist agenda of less immigration and tariffs to protect American jobs.”

And they completely disagree with the President’s approach to the refugee resettlement issues. “The LIBRE Initiative, the Koch’s premier pro-mass immigration organization, says the reduction of refugees to the U.S. is “not warranted” in a statement supporting the Senators’ call for as much refugee resettlement as possible.”

Sounds like the Koch immigration industrial complex is 100% aligned with TIRRC’s agenda even if AFP didn’t actively work against the Tennessee anti-sanctuary city bill which TIRRC of course, vehemently opposed. Remember, the anti-sanctuary city bill was written to keep illegal aliens who were arrested and in jail for committing local crimes, from being released back into local communities.

TIRRC is opposed to anything that even potentially puts an illegal alien into deportation proceedings because TIRRC doesn’t believe that everyone should have to follow the law.

TIRRC uses legal immigrants like refugees to shield their advocacy for illegal aliens – all of which is intended to take a red state like Tennessee and slowly over time, create purplish-blue pockets. TIRRC well understands that refugees can become voters just five years after their arrival.

Take for example, Nashville’s Kurdish refugee agitators who were first trained by, worked for TIRRC and eventually became citizens. Same with a number of Somali refugee agitators. These former refugees are aggressive political agitators pushing TIRRC’s radical agenda for legal immigrants and illegal aliens and every other “intersectional” issue they can find.

They want political power however they can get it. They want the whole state of Tennessee to be just like Davidson and Shelby counties.

A 2018 study released by the National Bureau of Economic Research on The Political Impact of Immigration: Evidence from the United States, pretty much affirms TIRRC’s radical agenda for Tennessee. That’s why TIRRC focuses on immigrants becoming voters and a pathway to citizenship for illegal aliens like the “DREAMERS” and constantly pushes the “we vote” narrative.

Groups like TIRRC, NAE and AFP use the false economic narrative to lure greedy, small vision elected officials and local chambers of commerce, to an immigration agenda which will ultimately hurt the American worker and upend core Constitutional principles.

But as AFP says, it’s all about “common ground” which for them is defined by money. Hopefully Tennessee’s elected officials understand what the money-grubbers don’t – abandoning Constitutional principles will in the end, make all that money, irrelevant.

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County Commissioner More Afraid of ‘State Officials’ Than Voters on Refugee Consent Issue?

For the less fearful Commissioners, they should know that they are being given misleading information on the refugee resettlement issue.

With regard to the issue of refugee resettlement, it would seem that county commissioners would be guided by the voters who put them into office.

Not so at the recent Coffee County Commission meeting where the commissioners voted to table until the February meeting, a resolution that says they want to stay out of the refugee resettlement program.

Looking for any excuse not to act, Commissioner Helen Debellis who wanted a motion to postpone considering the resolution also said that, “she doesn’t want to make state officials mad with the resolution without making sure they have all their facts together. ‘I don’t want to make the hand that feeds me mad,’” said Debellis.

What’s Debillis so afraid of? Denial of construction permits? A vindictive Governor?

What Debellis should be more concerned about is not listening to voters and supporting her state legislators. Rep. Rush Bricken has signed both the resolution which supports the state’s Tenth Amendment lawsuit challenging the federal refugee resettlement program, and Rep. Ron Gant’s bill, HB1929, which addresses the unConstitutional action of the federal government transferring the costs of it’s program to the state without an appropriation by the General Assembly.

Both these legislative actions make it clear that neither the federal government, nor any branch of the state government (ie, the executive branch), have the Constitutional authority to bypass the General Assembly when spending public money.

As an aside, it seems the Governor may have stepped into a similar problem with his school voucher program.

The Coffee County Commissioners were also likely misled by information provided by both the TN County Services Association (TCSA) and Holly Johnson, the State Refugee Coordinator who works for Catholic Charities of Tennessee (CCTN).

David Connor, Director of the TCSA has circulated a letter to county commissioners “advising” them about President Trump’s Executive Order 1388 which asked governors and local counties to weigh in on whether to accept refugees who are brought to their counties by federal contractors like the CCTN.

“The TCSA report said if the county was not contacted by a specific agency to accept refugees then there is nothing the county needs to do. Under the executive order, the county can only opt-in or consent into receiving refugees.”

The TCSA letter sent to county commissions also tried to tie refugee resettlement to the four urban counties – “[t]his has primarily been an issue affecting the four largest urban counties.” (Be sure to compare the info here with the TCSA version).

Holly Johnson pretty much walks in lock-step with the TCSA.

What neither the TCSA nor Johnson bothered to tell them is that the FY2020 Funding Notice is part of the package of federal documents which must be read alongside the President’s Executive Order because as the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement has directed, the Funding Notice “operationalizes” the Executive Order.

The Funding Notice which funnels taxpayer money to the federal resettlement contractors that Johnson advocates for, says that refugees can be placed between 50 – 100 miles away from the resettlement agency’s office.

And that’s been happening in Tennessee for quite some time and regardless of what Johnson says, there is no rule that requires the resettlement agency to get the county’s consent because the federal government says they can do it!

Actual arrival data reported by TOR shows that during the October 2014 – 2019 time period, federal contractors have placed refugees outside of the four urban areas including in the following counties: Montgomery, Rutherford, Sevier, Williamson, Roane, Sumner, Wilson, Fayette, Bedford, Anderson, Bradley, Coffee and Washington.

Then there’s the case of Rutherford County where no resettlement agency is located but which has been used as an initial resettlement site at least since 2012.

And Holly Johnson who is almost always moved to tears when she talks about her cash cow refugee program, didn’t seem terribly concerned about the refugees dumped in Rutherford County motel room by federal contractor World Relief which then closed its Nashville office. Johnson indicated that “ensuring whether refugee contractor World Relief provided food and clothing to the refugees it resettled, was not her responsibility.”

Despite shafting these refugees, World Relief continues to operate in Memphis, where Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris (former state Senator), held a ceremonial letter signing including World Relief’s director, consenting to continued refugee resettlement.

Mayor Lee Harris seated with World Relief director to his right, Holly Johnson standing in back clapping

Mayor Harris, along with the mayors from Knox and Davidson counties sit on the TCSA board. These are the three largest counties where federal refugee profiteers make their money.

These three counties also house mini-me TIRRCs – Centro Hispano in Knoxville supported in part with money from Pilot and La Raza Randy Boyd’s PetSafe.

TIRRC and Conexion Americas in Nashville, and Latino Memphis in Shelby County.

These organizations use refugees to help shield their advocacy for illegal aliens like opposing the anti-sanctuary city bill so that illegal aliens who commit crimes return to the community as opposed to being deported.

These organizations are being joined by groups like Indivisible in Greene County.

President Trump’s Executive Order was perfectly clear that county governments had a say along with a state’s governor.

Regardless, the arrogant Bill Lee declared otherwise – he said that counties would have to defer to him.

Bill Lee believes he has consented for the whole state and can force feed refugees into any county he chooses. So counties would be wise to formally object if they disagree with the Governor. In the end silence may equate to acceptance. The EO, the Funding Notice, the State Department Report to Congress and even the Department of Justice response to the VOLAG lawsuit trying to enjoin the EO, repeatedly say that they really want to just try and put refugees in communities that want to support them.

So Commissioners, maybe that’s why you need to say whether or not you want refugees to be resettled in your county.