So let me get this straight. Someone walks into a school and shoots children and Gov. Bill Lee’s friend, and Lee’s response is awkward silence and a sham legislative session. Nazis hang a thank-you note to him from a bridge, and Lee can’t be bothered to be concerned. Different Nazis yell vile antique epithets at Black children downtown, and it's crickets from the governor. Even when Nazis surround the state Capitol, Bill Lee is quiet as a church mouse. Hell, a Nazi hypes himself up on images of children being hurt, then he pulls a boxcutter on a student, and then he guns down Josslyn Correa Escalante, and Bill Lee has expressed not one ounce of concern about our schools being unable to deal with patterns of escalating violence from white supremacists.
An unknown number of people were detained in traffic stops and surrendered to federal immigration authorities, then bused out of state
But he sends state troopers along with ICE to play Invasion of the Abuela Snatchers, and then when asked about this cruel bullshit, he tells WKRN: “As we’ve said from the beginning, we want to be a willing partner with the federal government to remove criminals from our streets, and to the degree that they have an action we want to be a part of that.”
Remove criminals from our streets?! Bill Lee, you won’t even take down a Nazi thank-you note. You won’t send troopers to move Nazis away from the state Capitol. You won’t even ask the numerous legislators who have touched (or tried to pants) people without their consent to go home. But you invited kidnappers to come into our city to terrorize our Hispanic neighbors and steal their grandmas?!
Bill, do you know what kind of people kidnap grandmas? Bad people. It doesn’t matter if they have badges. It doesn’t matter if they work for the federal government. A person who is willing to scare the shit out of people, break apart families, and then run off with people’s loved ones is an evil person. You can say all you want that you’re removing “criminals” from the streets, but you’re making our city worse. You’re helping terrorize people. You’re making us all feel on edge and in danger.
Federal agent requested police patrols for 'field operation' two days before mass immigrant arrests
If I have to choose between a city full of people who snuck into the country in order to have better, safer lives and people with guns pulling us out of our cars and busting into our homes and trying to get into the schools to get at our children, give me the undocumented people every damn time. Because the people you’ve let loose on our streets are evil sadists who, let me repeat, steal grandmas.
I did consider offering ICE some shovels and the location there on Thompson Lane of a grandma named Juanita so we could test out whether you’re fine with all grandmas residing in that part of Nashville with Hispanic names being kidnapped by ICE, or if you would, in fact, be pissed and confused and scared if someone carted your grandma off someplace and you didn’t know where.
But there’s no need. We all know you would be pissed and confused and scared if ICE carted off your grandma, and we all know you’d do nothing about it. Because you’ve never once stood up to the people who want to rid Nashville (and America) of all non-white people. So why would you start now?
We also all know it because you’ve let this federal administration repeatedly humiliate you in public — calling you a "RINO," making you go kiss up to the president in order to get disaster relief in the wake of Helene, invading your state capital and stealing people and forcing you to either endorse it or look like you’re powerless — and you still smile and “yes, sir” along with it. Why would you do any different if they stole your grandma?
Every person who stood outside of the ICE building hoping for answers to the locations of their loved ones, who found the fortitude to speak to the media so we could all understand what was happening, even through the most horrific moments of their lives, everyone who is struggling to figure out just what the hell to do when the federal government is disappearing people — these people are all brave in a way you won’t be.
The Republican supermajority ramped up immigration crackdowns this year. Here’s what did and didn’t become law.
If curses were real, if they really worked, I’d curse you, Bill Lee, to never be able to forget that you hurt people and you facilitate the hurting of people by others, to know deep in your bones that you don’t have the courage to do the right thing, and to know that we all know it. I’d curse you to have to live in the grief you’ve put others in.
But the best I can do is to know that you are a bootlicking coward who lets people steal grandmas and to remind everyone of it whenever I get the chance.
The best you could do is change your ways and defend us from the people who hunt people through our streets instead of cheering them on.
