The federal government is apparently looking to relocate some immigrants out of its custody, and the thought of releasing them in Tennessee brought a storm of criticism and complaint from Tennessee conservatives.
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, and U.S. Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn) and Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn) made noise about the plan Tuesday. In a news statement, they claimed the White House and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) were planning “to release an unspecified number of single adult migrants into Tennessee” and blamed the move on “continued inaction to secure the Southern border.”
Tennessee Lookout questioned ICE about it, only to be told they have “not transported non-citizens for release to Tennessee.” ICE has not announced the move on its website nor on social media.
However, a Tuesday news alert from the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRCC) seemed to confirm that some detained immigrants may be released here.
“The federal government recently reached out to city and state government officials, as well as non-profits and faith communities, to coordinate an orderly process to assist asylum seekers and others who have been processed and cleared to leave immigration custody in traveling to reunite with family members,” TIRCC said in a statement.
Gov. Lee said his office was notified of the move Monday afternoon by the Biden Administration. The plan would “transport multiple busloads of single adult detainees from ICE facilities in New Orleans into Tennessee, beginning as soon as this week. Federal officials have not shared any further details. The governor’s office continues to push back on the plan.”
Lee called the move “irresponsible” and a “threat to the safety of Tennesseans.” He also battled an ICE move in 2021 that brought migrant children to the state on airplanes in “the dead of night.”
But in a statement on ICE’s recent plan, Lee’s focus once again shifted from Tennessee to the “Southern border.” Earlier this year, Lee sent about 50 Tennessee National Guard members to Texas to “curb a surging drug crisis.”
“[Seven thousand] people unlawfully enter our country every day,” Lee said. “This crisis is too big to ignore, and the only way to stop it is to secure the border.
“Placing the burden on states is not a solution, and we should not bear the brunt of the federal government’s failures. We are demanding the Biden administration reverse their plan for detainee relocation. In the meantime, we’re also discussing options with the Tennessee Attorney General and our federal delegation.”
Two of the top leaders of that delegation made it clear they won’t want the immigrants in Tennessee either. Blackburn said she, Lee, and Hagerty “will be utilizing all possible options to stop President Biden from trafficking illegal migrants into our state.”
“Biden created this crisis by terminating successful Trump-era immigration policies, including Remain in Mexico and safe third-country agreements,” Blackburn said in a statement. “Tennesseans will not stand for this flagrant abuse of law and order.”
Hagerty said the flow of immigrants into the U.S. has “brought heartbreaking consequences to communities throughout America in the form of increased drug overdoses.” These have strained resources for hospitals, schools, and local communities, he said. It has also put national security at risk as a number of those crossing “are on terrorist watch lists.”
“This is unacceptable,” Hagerty said. “A nation without a border is not a sovereign nation. President Biden cannot ignore this crisis any longer.”
From left: Mark Meadows, Bill Watkins, and former Governor Don Sundquist. (Photo by Jackson Baker).
There was really only one question I wanted to ask Mark Meadows, was obliged to ask him. I put it to him as soon as I met him, during a VIP reception in a back room of the vast space reserved Friday at the Agricenter for the Shelby County GOP’s annual Lincoln Day Banquet.
“Can you say categorically that you never were involved in discussions to obstruct or delay the counting of presidential ballots on January 6, 2021?”
The former Trump White House chief of staff, keynoter at this year’s banquet, gave me the sweetest, most accommodating smile, whereupon — as we both knew would happen — he evaded the question.
He almost made his refusal to answer sound regretful. “I’d love to answer that,” he said, “but, as the legal processes are still going on, I’m not able to … [brief pause] … but I thank you for asking.”
The gist of the aforementioned legal processes is that Meadows had begun cooperating with the House January 6th special committee looking into the unprecedented assault on the U.S. Capitol that took place on that date. And then he stopped cooperating, claiming executive privilege as he was asked about strategy sessions he is alleged to have conducted with Trump on January 6.
The House of Representatives, a body Meadows used to belong to, voted to find the former chief of staff guilty of criminal contempt and has urged the U.S. Justice Department to file criminal charges against him.
Meanwhile, Meadows, as big a name in the news as there is this side of the Ukrainian border, was chosen as the keynoter for the Shelby County Republican Party’s biggest annual event, its major fundraiser. He was selected for his usefulness as a draw, and,sure enough, several thousand Republicans dropped up to several thousand dollars apiece and gathered at the Agricenter on Friday to get a whiff of him.
The VIP reception, which followed another pre-event reception at the home of current state senate hopeful Brent Taylor, proved sufficiently popular to delay the rest of the banquet proceedings for the better part of an hour.
The dinner for attendees was a passable buffet, with options of steak or chicken breasts as the main entree, and conversation at the tables in the Agricenter’s cavernous space proceeded pleasurably enough, with every stripe of known politician — hundreds of them — up and working the room.
And then the event began, and that was when, for the overwhelming majority of attendees packed into that vast floor space, the event ceased to have much meaning. After an introduction and hello from local party chair Cary Vaughn, a prayer from former state representative and current gubernatorial adviser John DeBerry, a pledge of allegiance to the flag, and a singing of The Star Spangled Banner — all of which could barely be discerned as what they were, due to an embarrassingly bad audio system, the party trotted out its heavies — 8th District congressman David Kustoff, Senator Marsha Blackburn, and ultimately, Meadows.
The sound system was so dysfunctional that muffled noise was all that traveled into the near and far spaces alike of the giant arena. There was no doubt that the speakers were all doling out what the crowd probably came to hear — rhetoric extolling Republican values and condemning the presumed misprisions of the Democrats and President Joe Biden, especially.
But, except for the attendees seated at a few tables directly in front of the speaker, sentences went unheard, meanings had to be guessed at, and private conversations resumed at most of the tables throughout the sprawling floor space as the next best thing that could happen.
And, after all, most of what was being said from the dais was boilerplate of the most familiar kind. To the extent that the speakers received applause, they got it for being themselves and being there, not from anything they might have said.
Here and there, snatches of language could be divined, especially from Meadows, who has something of a clear, clarion voice. One sentence that emerged was, “You are making a difference right here in Shelby County!” Some sentences later he was telling an anecdote that contained the phrase “the Secret Service.”
And, several minutes into his speech, he intoned that orator’s classic: “Let me close with this …” After which came another 15 minutes or so of audio buzz. Eventually Meadows stopped speaking, got a round of applause as a reward for his presence, then resumed again with a coda of sorts. More audio buzz. And then he was done.
All the speakers tried hard, but at any given point it might as well have been eccentric perennial candidate Leo Awgowhat up there, trying out a string of his favorite obscenities on this unhearing strait-laced crowd. (I didn’t see him, but Awgowhat may have been at the event; he’s running for office as a Republican this year).
Circumstances being what they were, one looked for sideshows. One was Brandon Toney, the never-say-die candidate for state Senate who has twice been denied bona fides to run by the state Republican Committee. Toney, along with his campaign manager Katrina Garner, were bird-dogging anybody they could talk to and intimating that they were making arrangements to get on the widely watched Fox-TV show of Tucker Carlson to keep pitching Toney’s case.
Brandon Toney working the crowd. (Photo by Jackson Baker).
Various dignitaries from the Republican past were on hand. I was pleased to see Don and Martha Sundquist, the state’s former Governor and First Lady at the event, squired by veteran CPA Bill Watkins, long the local GOP’s mega-finance manager for important campaigns.
Sundquist, now somewhat infirm and perceptibly an elder, has in the last few years made an effort to accommodate himself to the currently shaped GOP, a more vitriolic one than he attempted to represent in Nashville back in the ’90s and early 2000’s, when as governor, in tandem with Democrats, Sundquist made serious efforts to accomplish state tax reform.
Ward Baker, the Nashville fireplug of so many GOP campaign efforts, local, state, and national, was there. We exchanged hellos, and I learned that someone had foolishly asked him at some point if he were my son. (!!!)
State GOP chair Scott Golden of Jackson was there, benignly explaining that the state Republican executive committee had forced his hand on a series of recent candidate removals from approved ballot status. The aforesaid Toney failed to appeal himself back on the ballot; congressional candidate Brown Dudley, and County Commission candidate Jordan Carpenter had better luck.
State Republican Party chair Scott Golden. (Photo by Jackson Baker).
I must say that the vast majority of Republicans on hand for Lincoln Day were personally benevolent in the extreme. I cribbed some table time from the very affable Steve Cross, the GOP’s candidate for assessor. (He opposes the equally affable Democratic incumbent, Melvin Burgess, on the August county ballot). And I reminded myself that, for all the craziness that occurs in politics, people are people, all trying to do right by the best of their lights.
Judge Chris Craft and wife Susie. (Photo by Jackson Baker).
As I passed through the arena, post-Meadows, another speaker, Republican congressman Mark Green, was at the dais, and, as I walked in front of the stage, on the way out, I actually could hear him, blasting away at Joe Biden.
I saw Bill Dries, the Daily Memphian reporter, standing nearby taking notes and asked him if he’d been able to hear anything intelligible during the evening. He said he had, and I felt a surge of wholly non-competitive elation thinking that I might have the opportunity to learn from his ultimate copy just exactly how some of the event’s spoken boilerplate had gone.
“I think gas prices are going down,” I said to no one. It was a week ago and I was alone, driving along Union and Poplar and seeing posted prices as low as $3.59 a gallon. I was sure I hadn’t seen prices below $4 a gallon in a while, but the news had been filled with “sky-rocketing gas prices” stories for weeks (accompanied by grim analyses of how inflation was going to cost the Democrats the midterms), so maybe I was imagining things?
Then, on Monday, I got an email from GasBuddy, a tech company based in Boston that operates apps based on monitoring real-time fuel prices at more than 150,000 gas stations in the United States, Canada, and Australia. Each week, GasBuddy sends me a weekly update on the country’s gas prices. I usually send it to junk mail, but not this week. According to GasBuddy, prices in Memphis are 17.4 cents a gallon lower than they were a month ago, down to $3.42 a gallon, if you know where to look. Nationally, gas prices are down 23.3 cents a gallon from a month ago. This is good, right? So why is it not news? Maybe it’s because a “falling gas prices” story doesn’t fit a defining media narrative. Or maybe there’s just too damn much news — most of it bad — to keep up with.
Consider, an English teacher in Southeast Missouri was just fired for teaching “Critical Race Theory” in an elective contemporary literature class that was reading the award-winning book, Dear Martin. It was Kim Morrison’s second year teaching the young adult novel, but earlier this year, Missouri passed a bill outlawing the teaching of CRT and parents complained, you see, so …
Oh, and let’s not forget the case of a woman in Texas, Lizelle Herrera, who was indicted for murder for “the death of an individual by self-induced abortion.” It was unclear whether Herrera induced her own abortion or someone else’s, but, you know, details aren’t really important in these matters. Herrera was later released because Texas’ new law banning abortions after six weeks is only enforceable if charges are brought by a private citizen, i.e. a vigilante, and local law enforcement had overstepped their authority. Shocker, I know.
But wait, there’s more. All over GOPutin America, legislators are rushing to emulate bills like these, as well as those similar to Florida’s spiffy new “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which eliminates the nonexistent threat of kindergartners being taught anything about LGBTQ humans.
In Tennessee, legislators are not about to be left behind their Neanderthal red-state brethren. They had been working diligently to pass into law a bill that would remove age limits for marriage, because young girls, they do get weary and sometimes just need a husband who will help them with their homework. A national outcry got our Nash-billies to back off. For now.
Speaking of national outcries … The New York Times did a big story this week on Hillsdale College’s fight against “leftist academics,” which mainly consists of getting state legislatures to give them public money to start charter schools in suburban and rural areas (white) to, as the Times put it, “provide a publicly funded off-ramp for conservative parents who think their local schools misinterpret history and push a socially progressive agenda.”
Our own Governor Bill Lee got a lot of ink in the story as the leading Hillsdale proponent in the country among public officials. Lee, you may recall, intends to give Hillsdale College enough of our tax dollars to fund 50 private charter schools in Tennessee.
And, as long as I’m writing about embarrassing Tennessee elected officials, I’d be remiss in not mentioning Senator Marsha Blackburn’s apparent flashing of the “white power” hand symbol in the Senate chambers while questioning Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin, who is — shocking, I know — African American. Way to go, Marsha. In a week with tons of disgusting news, you found the bottom of the barrel and scraped it.
SNL razzed Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn last weekend. Cecily Strong nailed Blackburn’s accent and hairdo during “Weekend Update.”
In the segment, the not-real Blackburn took a victory lap on her performance during the confirmation hearing of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, in which the real Blackburn asked Brown Jackson to define “woman.” Strong’s Blackburn becomes befuddled when Colin Jost asks her to define “woman.”
“It’s not all biology,” she said. “Woman is cheerleader, nurse, teacher, prostitute. C’mon, you’ve seen them. They’re the ones that are always cold. They’re the ones that be shopping.”
The Slap
The Slap launched a thousand memes, and the MEMernet couldn’t resist.
Posted to Facebook by Memphis Memes 901
The Storm
A severe storm threatened Memphis last week. The city was spared the worst, but it did give weatherheads something to post about.
President Joe Biden (Photo:
Palinchak | Dreamstime.com)
“For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.”
With these nine words — apparently an ad-lib departure from his scripted speech in Poland last Saturday — President Joe Biden started the media’s hearts a-thumpin’ and created a field day for pundits, commentators, and other opinionistas. The next morning, the front pages of the country’s major newspapers led with the story of Biden’s “gaffe.” The Sunday cable shows were all over it. Quelle horreur!
Biden was speaking of Vladimir Putin, of course, the man who has single-handedly shoved Europe into disorder, destruction, and bloody conflict over the past month, the man who unilaterally invaded and attempted a takeover of a sovereign nation by brutal force.
But, apparently, suggesting that such a man should be removed from power is a bridge too far. Biden’s improv sent Washington media elites to their fainting couches. What will Vlad think? Will he be peeved? Sensing that the president may have taken a step too far, the White House immediately walked back the statement, saying that the president only meant that Putin should be removed from power in Ukraine. Right.
Here’s the thing: There are two sets of rules in play here. Donald Trump used to utter more “gaffes” before lunch on any given Tuesday than Biden has offered up in 14 months. “Little Rocket Man,” anyone? Redrawing the path of a hurricane on a map with a Sharpie? Suggesting that scientists figure out a way to “do an injection into the lungs” with bleach? Now those are gaffes.
And remember that Trump loves Putin, repeatedly calling him a “genius.” At a Mar-a-Lago gathering a month ago, Trump said, “Putin’s taking over a country for two dollars’ worth of sanctions. I’d say that’s pretty smart. He’s taking over a country — really a vast, vast location, a great piece of land with a lot of people — and just walking right in.”
How remarkable is that? The former president of the United States is rooting for the current iteration of Hitler’s invasion of Poland to succeed, discussing it like it’s a real estate deal. The remark didn’t get much play on the morning shows, though. Not gaffe-y enough, I guess.
Biden, by contrast, was saying the quiet part out loud, something most decent people wish would happen: Putin has got to go. Forty years ago, President Reagan routinely called for the Berlin Wall to fall and labeled the Soviet Union “an evil empire.” Today, that’s not prudent. And, as with everything else in the U.S. these days, the political tribal divide defines how we react to things.
We have only to look at the circus surrounding the Supreme Court nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson for another example. Despite having no real blemishes on her record and more judicial and trial experience than any nominee in decades, she suffered the slings and rubber-tipped arrows of GOP opportunists such as Tom Cotton, Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, Josh Hawley, and our homegrown lightweight, Marsha Blackburn, who accused Jackson of having a “hidden agenda to bring critical race theory into the law” (Huh?) and asked the judge to “define a woman.” (I would dearly love to see Marsha try to answer that latter question. Or “what’s eight times seven?” for that matter.)
Speaking of SCOTUS, how about that wacky Ginni Thomas, amirite? (Fun fact: Ginni’s number was 867-5309.) Copies of texts she sent to Trump chief of staff, Mark Meadows, were released to the media last week, and it’s clear she was a major force in organizing the January 6th insurrection and the attempt to overthrow the 2020 election. Kind of unseemly for the wife of a Supreme Court justice, don’t you think? Surely, even Republicans would agree with that? Nope. Crickets.
But, to be honest, I’m hard-pressed to think of any Republican senator who would put principle and/or love of country over party hackery and self-interest. Maybe Mitt Romney? Lisa Murkowski? I know the Democrats have their own hacks, but the country has come to a sad state of affairs when we can’t find agreement on issues with such an obvious demarcation between right and wrong. It’s always tribes über alles — much to our mutual detriment.
Tennessee’s senior Senator Marsha Blackburn rolled through just about every political and Tennessee subreddit last week, thanks to her performance during the U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearing of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Blackburn asked Brown Jackson to define “woman,” hinted her “personal hidden agenda” was to incorporate critical race theory into the legal system, and said white privilege was made up. Marsha, Marsha.
Ja V. Elvis
Posted to YouTube by ESPN
ESPN came to Memphis last week. NBA Countdown host Stephen A. Smith hoped Ja Morant’s face would start to replace Elvis’ on Memphis billboards. “Elvis is dead,” he said. “He’s not coming back.”
Memphis Mayo
A MEMernet classic resurfaced last week as many pointed out that Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland’s Wikipedia page still has the fake mayonnaise content after years. The “personal life” section says Strickland is “an avid mayonnaise enthusiast” with an “extensive collection“ of 69 varieties of the condiment. It says while some have criticized Strickland’s mayonnaise spending, many in the city “adoringly refer to the mayor as ‘Mayo Strickland.’”
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson (Photo: Wikimedia | Creative Commons)
Sometimes I think about jumping ship. Perhaps I flatter myself, but I think I have some felicity with a turn of phrase. I have, on occasion, inspired an emotional response from my readers. Maybe I’m letting my ego run wild, but I think I could add something to any bench of speechifiers. Why not me?
What, one might ask, has prompted this flight of fancy?
Why it’s the senate confirmation hearing for U.S. Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, of course! As I write these words, the hearings are still ongoing, and it’s becoming apparent beyond parody how different are the standards to which we hold certain individuals. Consider, for example, the stark difference in qualifications between, say, Judge Jackson and Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn, who grilled Jackson on the first day of the hearing. If you so happen to be surfing the world wide web, I suggest contrasting the two officials’ Ballotpedia pages.
Jackson “received a bachelor’s degree in government, magna cum laude, and a J.D., cum laude, from Harvard University in 1992 and 1996, respectively. She served as the supervising editor of the Harvard Law Review from 1995 to 1996.” Blackburn, just for comparison, “graduated from Mississippi State University with a bachelor’s in home economics.”
Jackson’s page also boasts a lengthy list of awards. But I shouldn’t be unfair. Blackburn’s name is in a New York Times headline this week. To wit, the Times published an article by Charlie Savage titled “Echoing Conservative Grievances, Blackburn Miscasts Jackson’s Views.”
If you’ve seen any of the video from the hearing, you already know that transgender athletes, progressive education, parental rights, and (of course) critical race theory (CRT) were on the senator’s list of grievances. Most of the issues were, to be generous, something of a leap. Blackburn misquoted her way through Jackson’s record, apparently attempting to prove that Jackson was an agent of the deep state, hell-bent on introducing her secret biases into the American legal system.
“Ms. Blackburn also described three instances in which Judge Jackson ordered the release of inmates, including ‘a convict who murdered a U.S. marshal,’” Savage writes in the Times article. “The cases appeared to match three Covid-era rulings by the judge under a compassionate release law. The senator omitted the context: The man who killed a U.S. marshal, for instance, did so in 1971, had since served 49 years, and was 72 at the time of his release, with myriad health problems.”
Ah yes, those dangerous 72-year-olds. What a menace! Surely, this is proof that Judge Jackson is “soft on crime.”
Is that all it takes? One has only to mumble their way through a list of talking points, and one of the nation’s two foremost political parties is all too ready to celebrate them? Don’t we expect more from our senators? There are only 100 of them! Can we not expect them to comport themselves with some dignity? At the very least, can they not misquote people during a nationally televised hearing?
Of course, the lion’s share of the blame is undoubtedly because Jackson is Black. I have no doubt that the complaints from senators and Fox News hosts are owed primarily to racism, particularly any so-called “concern” about the judge’s qualifications for the role.
It’s a disturbing trend and a truly sad state of affairs. And if people think this behavior is acceptable while on camera, imagine what must happen in so many interviews, meeting rooms, and who-knows-where-else across the country. The unnecessary scrutiny some people must contend with, the free pass others get to make mistakes again and again and again. What really frightens me is that there seems to be a significant portion of Americans who think that it’s normal to twist the facts to fit a narrative, for whom fact checking is an anachronism.
So I wonder sometimes what it’s like to join the party for whom qualifications only matter if you’re talking about the other team. Why be constrained by facts, truth, common decency, or the belief that everyone deserves a fair shot? It must be an easy gig, following that well-worn script, if you can find a way to sleep at night.
All you have to do is speak loudly and carry a big grudge.
Another crackpot conspiracy theory has entered the fray. Last week, the right-wing rag Washington Free Beacon took some liberties and a giant leap of logic, reporting that President Joe Biden’s administration will be handing out free crack pipes as part of a $30 million health grant package.
Before long, the headline — “Biden Admin To Fund Crack Pipe Distribution To Advance ‘Racial Equity’” — was out. The article was shared hither and yon, with at least one local news organization repeating it. Prominent Republican politicians lost no time getting in on the game, with Tennessee’s senior senator, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, releasing a video claiming that the Biden administration planned to set up vending machines to distribute crack pipes.
You know, because why not bypass marijuana decriminalization and go straight for crack pipe distribution?
Around the same time, The Daily Beast reported that the claim was false. A spokesperson from the Department of Health and Human Services was interviewed, but they never said that crack pipes were part of the package. In fact, what the spokesperson did say was that “all kits must comply with the law.”
The kits in question are, it’s true, smoking kits. They’re part of a measure to reduce the risk to those addicted to illicit substances, in what’s usually termed harm reduction. “Safe smoking kits have been identified to reduce the spread of disease,” reads the report, and to that end, the kits would include things like brass screens, rubber mouthguards, and disinfectant wipes.
The grant package also includes funding for things like screening for diseases such as HIV, syringe and medicine disposal, safe sex kits, wound care, overdose reversal drugs, and community outreach.
In other words, there are no vending machines distributing free crack pipes, and nobody’s getting high off of anything paid for by this package.
The HHS and the White House denied the crackpot crack pipe claim. The email exchange with the Washington Free Beacon reporter was turned over to the reporter from The Daily Beast, and there was no mention of crack pipes. Various fact checkers weighed in as well. By that point, of course, the damage was done. I doubt that “crack pipe vending machines” will ever leave the talking-point toolbox of far-right politicians. It’s a specter that will haunt any conversation about harm reduction in the future, like microchips in vaccines, former President Obama’s birth certificate, and ritualistic Satanic abuse.
You almost can’t blame them. It really is the perfect right-wing talking point, especially with the “racial equity” phrase in that initial headline. “Look what critical race theory leads to,” I can imagine some self-professed conservative talking head saying. “Right to crack pipe vending machines. And they’ll put them in your neighborhood.” It’s just the right mix of racism, classism, moral outrage, and fear mongering. The best thing about it? Since it was never going to happen anyway, it’s a perfect thing to campaign on. As the aforementioned vending machines will never materialize, that’s one campaign promise anyone can keep.
I’m not sure what pains me more, that a new bogeyman has been added to the right-wing arsenal or that serious public relations damage has no doubt been done to the legitimate need for harm reduction measures. Probably the latter. If the past two years have made anything clear, it’s that any community is only as healthy as its least-cared-for members. Meaning it’s really in everyone’s best interest to help take care of the people who are suffering.
Of course, I make these points, as I often do, because I hope they’ll reach some conservative-minded neighbor or family member, someone who cares about the bottom line, who wants to know what’s in it for them. But really, I just think it’s the right thing to do. To work to reduce the suffering of our fellow human beings — isn’t that a noble calling? A worthwhile use of resources?
Oh well. That’s probably enough of my crackpot theories.
Last weekend, I found myself in a long conversation with my brother-in-law’s father, Art. (Is there a name for that relationship?) He’s a college professor, so we have similarly oriented jobs — we both do a lot of sitting, thinking, writing, and reading. And sitting. Lots of sitting. But he describes himself as a conservative; whereas, I typically call myself a progressive.
Art lives in a small town in rural Middle Tennessee. I live in Memphis. We’re both men and we’re both white, so we have that mountain of privilege in common. Still, with our political and geographic identities being what they are, if you only listened to the national news outlets, you’d think we would be unable to have a five-minute-long conversation without smashing a wine bottle over one another’s heads. So, even though we politely disagree about some potential solutions to certain problems, we can usually agree that issues like pollution, pandemics, or disappearing newspapers are problems.
One of the more frightening items on that list, as we saw it, is the devolution of political discourse into a world in which there is but one criteria — absolute, unquestioning loyalty.
This week, Politico reported that Sen. Marsha Blackburn is among a list of GOP politicians being eyed as a running mate for a 2024 bid by our former president, Mr. Donald J. Trump.
To which I say, “Sure. Why not?”
Sen. Blackburn certainly isn’t interested in Tennessee or in any of the problems we face. She’s more often found using her platform to talk about our dealings with China or the southern border of the United States. If you made a drinking game out of her 2018 debate with former Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen and had taken a shot every time she said “Obama” or “NRA,” you would have died of alcohol poisoning. It seems clear to me that Sen. Blackburn wants to work on a larger stage, to vie for national attention. She can’t be bothered with such pedestrian concerns as infrastructure in her own state, or gun violence, healthcare access, poverty, education, or any of the other problems plaguing Tennessee. She’s got what it takes to make it to the top, though.
As Politico’s Marc Caputo reported in the aforementioned article, “Those familiar with his thinking say his selection will be determined by two factors that rate highest in Trump’s estimation: unquestioned loyalty and an embrace of the former president’s baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.”
And there we have it. No wonder Marsha’s name is being floated as a potential running mate. She is, after all, happy to parrot the lie of the stolen election. In this way, Tennessee’s senior senator represents much of what I find so hard to stomach about this moment in time. We are knocking on the door of year two of a global pandemic, with the newly arisen Omicron variant presenting another cause for concern. As the Great Resignation rolls on, we find ourselves in the middle of a long-overdue reckoning about workers rights. These are national issues, yes, but they are also ones that specifically impact Tennessee. No elected official has unfettered power, but it seems that a wily politician could leverage the national zeitgeist into some sort of strategy to implement change for their constituents. But that’s not going to play well on Fox — or in Mar-a-Lago.
Unquestioning loyalty is the name of the game, and under those rules, there’s no incentive to reach across the aisle. There’s not even a reason to attempt to fix problems such as healthcare access or stagnated wages and unsafe working conditions. To do so might mean admitting someone from the opposing party has the right idea, at least occasionally, and it’s a short road from there to an angry mob chanting “Hang, [Insert Politician’s Name]” on the lawn.
I suppose it’s no wonder why Sen. Blackburn and her ilk ignore real problems in favor of the same list of talking points, happily tilting at fantastical border walls. But it’s not helping any of us living in the real world.
A Tuesday Senate hearing on holiday toy safety found a massive increase in button battery-related injuries in small children last year and reviewed legislation to reduce them.
Button batteries are those small, silver, coin-shaped batteries that power a range of small devices like watches, hearing aids, television remotes, garage door openers, and more. From March to September 2020, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission discovered a 93 percent increase in button battery-related injuries in children aged 5-9. The injuries mostly involved ingestion, but some involved children placing a small battery in their nose or ear.
During the seventh-month time period, most children were at home as Covid kept many schools closed. Their parents were likely home, too, and distracted by balancing home life, work, and, maybe, teaching their children.
“Having kids around products with coin batteries with distracted parts goes a long way to explain the increase,” Dr. Benjamin Hoffman with the American Academy of Pediatrics said during Tuesday’s hearing.
Having kids around products with coin batteries with distracted parts goes a long way to explain the increase
Dr. Benjamin Hoffman, American Academy of Pediatrics
Hoffman told lawmakers he wanted rules for manufacturers to make it as hard as possible to remove button batteries from devices. He suggested also they add a coat of a bittering agent on removable batteries so children would spit them out if ingested. Though, Hoffman said no hard data exists on the efficacy of doing so.
To add these protections, lawmakers reviewed Reese’s Law. It would create those standards to make it hard for children to access the batteries in products. It would also create new warning-label requirements to tell of the hazards of ingesting button batteries.
The proposed law is named for Reese Hamsith. The Texas girl swallowed a button battery at age one and did not live to her next birthday. Reese’s mother, Trista — founder of the child advocacy group Reese’s Purpose — told lawmakers Tuesday of Reese’s ordeal.
Trista said her daughter swallowed a button battery in October 2020. She then wasn’t “her spunky self” and a doctor diagnosed the girl with croup, her mother said.
“After returning home we noticed a button battery missing from a device,” she said. “We tore the house apart but couldn’t find it. A quick Google search had us rushing to the emergency room. An x-ray confirmed that she had ingested the battery and doctors performed emergency surgery to remove the battery.”
But the battery created a hole in her esophagus and trachea, allowing food and water into the little girl’s lungs and air into her stomach. The girl died after a surgery to close the hole in December 2020.
Lawmakers also considered the dangers of a raft of holiday toys, especially counterfeits not made to comply with safety standards, in the hearing called “Hidden Holiday Hazards: Product Safety During the Holiday Season.” Last year, 150,000 toy-related injuries and nine deaths were reported to the federal government, experts said Tuesday.
Last year, 150,000 toy-related injuries and nine deaths were reported to the federal government.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee) told of a Tennessee family that bought a hoverboard as gift online. The hoverboard caught fire and burned the family’s house down. She urged manufacturers, retailers, and government overseers to closely monitor supply chains for poorly made and counterfeit toy products.
“So, these are the things that we watch out for to make certain that the supply chain is going to be safe — and as more consumers are buying from third-party platforms — that they’re going to have the insight into where these products are coming from and why these products might be unsafe,” Blackburn said.
Holiday dangers extend from toys, too, lawmakers were told, to Christmas tree lights, menorahs, and more. From 2016 to 2018, 100 Christmas tree fires and 1,100 candle fires resulted in 30 deaths and 180 injuries, according to federal data.
