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Patrick Daniels aka Cromulent1's avatar

Another peerless in vacuous idiocy MAGA cretinous wastrel, there is no reasonable way to point to Trumps ties to money laundering with Russian oligarchs they’ll understand. Pointing out the fact Trump was born into the Genovese crime syndicate, usually brings pause to their beliefs.

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Lorie's avatar

I'm actually impressed that Ken had found Progress Channel and called in, given how Tennessee, like much of the South, is gerrymandered into the best pretzel that conservative money can buy, and then blocks as much news about the rest of the US and global affairs as they can. But Tennessee went on display for a moment when the "Tennessee Three", a white-woman legislator and two young Black-male legislators, were suspended from the Legislature for demonstrating in favor of gun control. And this was after a private school shooting where several white (male) legislators knew friends or family of the murdered students.

This was the same legislature that had to "have discussions and committee hearings" when the Biden administration offered TN something like $12 billion for enhanced public education, particularly for students with disabilities. Tennessee had to "think" about whether to accept that federa money, while my state would have asked "how soon will the $12 billion arrive in our account? Please, Please! I think that TN ultimately turned down that money because it doesn't care if public schools are poorly funded, or public school teachers aren't paid enough. They are ONLY interested in private school funding - so that they can return to private (white) schools and poorly funded (brown/black/poor white) public schools; a new form of segregated schooling. 'Cause that's how the South rolls. Still only good for white, well-off people, but not for brown/black/poor "suckers and losers".

So Ken escaped from the "Tennessee box" of racism/sexism/homophobia/anti-semitist thinking for a few years of service in our military. And....now.....he has questions that made him reach for his phone. Excellent! If he lives outside of any urban area in Tennessee, he may be in a Media Desert (sort of like a grocery desert or a medical desert) where only young people have phones that tell them the truth about the outside world. It's like northern Idaho, where only Red State communications prevail, unless you have extraterrestrial radio/TV.

And as far as Vietnam, and our memories of other American wars go, well, them was just the killing of some brown/black people far away in a shithole country, right? (Tennessee thought, at least in the legislature, I imagine.)

Fact: The KKK had its birth in Tennessee.

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