Advocacy Wire
5-11-26 Good Trouble Chat
Today the focus was on Tennessee and how they robbed black residences of Memphis ANY representation, stole their political voice and power. Listen to the replay here.
I wrote a substack to express my outrage.
The Tennessee Robbery: Black Political Power
The right to vote is NOT some abstract political debate. Too many people perhaps too many generations removed have no idea of what everyday life was like for black folks in the Jim Crow era. Some voluntary new arrivals walk into this working democracy having no idea that it got to this point because my ancestors fought and some even died for it.
I talked about the idiot who came into my TL over my article diminishing the harm.
When Sellouts & Hit Dogs Holler
Bryan Stevens was right, “The North won the war but the South won the narrative.” It has misled countless generations —black and white smothering and whitewashing the ugly truth of this country’s history.
Videos:
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The Autocratic Grift
The GOP bill released late Monday would designate the money for the U.S. Secret Service for “security adjustments and upgrades” related to the ballroom project, which Trump and Republicans have been pushing since Cole Tomas Allen allegedly stormed the April 25 media dinner at the Washington Hilton with guns and knives
During the 1930s, visitors to the FBI offices in Washington, D.C., received souvenir fingerprint cards featuring J.Edgar Hoover’s name. The men who succeeded generally avoided giving out branded swag. But then came Kash Patel. Merchandise for sale on a website he co-founded—still operating, nearly 15 months into his term— Current and former agents also told me they were concerned by Patel’s gifts of personalized bourbon.
Hypocrisy & GOP
“Changing the rules on the eve of an election would wreak chaos upon the electoral process and would unnecessarily risk voter confusion and disenfranchisement of Tennessee’s military and overseas voters, causing irreparable harm to the (the State) and to the public interest,” a 2022 court filing by Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti said.
Regional Spotlight: Fascist Tennessee Shenanigans
GOP Political Robber Barons
Democrats warned their counterparts that a day of reckoning is coming. Yet Republicans forged ahead, despite looming litigation, spending millions of taxpayer dollars to gather for three unholy days – to prop up the president.
These maps are racist tools of white supremacy at the behest of the most powerful white supremacist in the United States of America, Donald J. Trump. Memphis is the most beautiful place on the planet. It’s the place that raised me, my brothers, my parents, my grandmothers, and where my ancestors’ bones rest. And what you are doing today is eviscerating the only Black majority congressional district in our state because we are majority Black, said Rep (D) Justin Pearson
The NAACP’s Tennessee chapter filed a lawsuit Thursday afternoon challenging the legality of the state’s new congressional map, redrawn so a majority-Black voting district was eliminated.
“Racism doesn’t become less racist just because it’s called partisan.”
Gore delivered an updated version of his Climate Crisis presentation — popularized 20 years ago in the documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth” — during a training hosted by his nonprofit the Climate Reality Project in Nashville on Friday.
A U.S House Congressional Ethics panel recommended a further investigation of Ogles in January 2025 after a preliminary report found he likely violated federal campaign finance laws by inflating a personal loan to make his bid for office look stronger. Side Note: He’s my rep now bc of the redistricting in 2022
The money comes in many streams through different legal channels, all aiming to influence regulations, push for tax breaks and secure government contracts, often to further private interests instead of the public. The Tennessee Lookout, relying on publicly filed lobbying and campaign finance reports, created a tool to search Tennessee’s top political spenders and recipients.
Political Overview
GOP Weaponization
The Trump administration’s cancellation of more than $100 million in humanities grants to scholars, writers, research groups and other organizations was unconstitutional, and DOGE had no authority to end the funding, a federal judge in New York ruled on Thursday. U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon in Manhattan sided with The Authors Guild, several other groups and several people who had their grants canceled and sued DOGE and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Unpaid Child Support: The department told The Associated Press on Thursday that the revocations would begin Friday and be focused on those who owe $100,000 or more. That would apply to about 2,700 American passport holders, according to figures supplied to the State Department by the Department of Health and Human Services.
Federal officials raided the Portsmouth office of Virginia Sen. L. Louise Lucas on Wednesday as part of an ongoing corruption investigation. Hours later, Lucas publicly responded, accusing the Trump administration of using federal power to intimidate political opponents.“Today’s actions by Federal agents are about far more than one state senator; they are about power and who is allowed to use it on behalf of the people,” Lucas wrote.
Fulton county, Georgia, is trying to fend off a subpoena from a federal prosecutor in North Carolina seeking contact information for thousands of poll workers from the 2020 election.
Geopolitical Issues:
The 17 Americans aboard the MV Hondius are expected to be flown to the United States and monitored at the National Quarantine Unit at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, a specialized facility for highly hazardous communicable diseases. An 18th evacuee — a British national who lives in the U.S. — was among them
The tobacco shops are just one example of how Orbán, over the course of his 16-year rule, rewired Hungary’s economy, turning it into a giant patronage machine. “He tested out the redistribution of assets, taking away ownership with regulatory help and passing it on to cronies,” says József Péter Martin, the Hungary chief of Transparency International, a global corruption watchdog
Article: https://apple.news/Az857V0sSTLiQcMNQmEzamA
(paywall free version: https://archive.ph/sCldB#selection-1289.0-1295.93 )
This Week in History: OTD
On May 9, 1960, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves the world’s first commercially produced birth-control pill—Enovid-10, made by the G.D. Searle Company of Chicago, Illinois.
May 9, 1960, the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee opens impeachment hearings against President Richard Nixon, voting to impeach him on three counts on July 30. The impeachment was the result of the scandal involving the bungled burglary of the offices of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate apartment complex in Washington, D.C., on June 23, 1972. Eventually, it was learned that there was a criminal cover-up that went all the way to the White House. Nixon, facing the impeachment proceedings, resigned the presidency on August 8, 1974.
May 10, 1865: Jefferson Davis, president of the fallen Confederate government, is captured with his wife and entourage near Irwinville, Georgia, by a detachment of Union General James H. Wilson’s cavalry.
In South Africa, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela is sworn in as the first Black president of South Africa. In his inaugural address, Mandela, who spent 27 years of his life as a political prisoner of the South African government, declared that “the time for the healing of the wounds has come.”
May 11, 1865: Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi SS officer who organized Adolf Hitler’s “final solution of the Jewish question," is captured in Argentina.
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Other Sources:
Democratic candidates, voters file federal challenge to Tennessee’s redistricting
TN governor signs law requiring new citizenship vetting for voters if feds develop national database
Legislators Advance Bill To Limit Corporate Money In Hawaiʻi Elections