Tennessee Three defy the super Republican majority in the state legislature

• On March 27, 2023, a mass school shooting occurred at The Covenant School, a Presbyterian Church in America parochial elementary school in the Green Hills neighborhood of Nashville, Tennessee, left six people, including three children dead.
• Two dead in shooting, including the DJ, at South Nashville lounge on April 23, 2023.

First Lady Dr. Jill Biden attended  memorial for the victims of the Tennessee Covenant Christian School shootings.

Echo opinion letter to the editor of Tuscon.com in Arizona:

It is bad enough that the Republican super majority of the Tennessee Legislature intended to expel members for voicing their opinion that the Legislature should do something about gun violence in the wake of the horrible, but sadly routine, Nashville shooting where . How could the Republican Legislature make that position any worse? Yet they found a way - only expelling the two young black males members while sparing the one white female member. 

Now, the three are proudly labeled "The Tennessee Three!"

(From Left) Rep. Justin Pearson, Rep. Justin Jones and Rep. Gloria Johnson "The Tennessee Three"

Ideological differences were not enough for the Republican majority. They had to stoop to overt racism. Is uppityness a word?

From Rick Jones in Downtown Tucson, AZ

Ginni Thomas (Mrs. Clarence Thomas) has a lot of explaining to do!

January 6th panel sends letter asking (Mrs. Clarence Thomas) Ginni Thomas to testify: The chairman of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection says the panel has asked Virginia Thomas for an interview.

Dinner-table chitchat with Ginni and Clarence Thomas

Wife of Supreme Court Justice Causes Chaos on Capitol Hill

Why does Ginni Thomas think her voice counts more than mine?

Ginni Thomas, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas's wife, was texting Trump's Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, to overturn the results of the national election on January 6. 

Turns out that earlier she called AZ legislators to get them to elect a "clean slate of electors," or rather electors that would overturn the will of Arizona voters and elect Trump rather than Biden.

That's my vote she wanted to throw out!  Who does she think she is? Oh yes, Clarence Thomas' wife. Remember him? He is in the majority of the leaked Supreme Court opinion that would throw out Roe v Wade, and with it, the power of women all over the country to make choices about their own bodies. Recognize a theme? These people think they deserve to rule our lives. Stand up for voting rights and for a future Supreme Court that represents the people, Arizonans!

From Molly Hunter in Midtown, Phoenix Arizona

Vaccine arithmetic 101: Vaccines are effective and free

Cases of ivermectin poisoning.

Echo opinion letter published in Tuscon.com

After reading about the use of Ivermectin (use to treat infections caused by some parasitic worms, and head lice and skin conditions- used by #TFG cult to treat COVID), one opinion writer reflects growing up in Wyoming. 

Right Wing #TFG cult would rather pay for horse medicine! 

My Tweet:

Juliana L'Heureux@julianawriter
@FoxNews More evidence about #TFG cult are arithmetic challenged! These obsessed #AntiVaxxer people would rather pay average retail price for the useless anti-worm drug #Ivermectin taken by idiots is $107.99 but @pfizer @moderna_tx & @JNJNews is #FREEVaccine @CNN #VaccinesWork

Local ranchers used an array of veterinary medicines; antibiotics for infections, vaccines to prevent infection and anti-parasitics to deworm.

Following misinformation from (snake oil sales!) conservative commentators and podcasts, many are self treating with an “off the shelf” dewormer, now resulting in overloading ER’s and ICU’s. Ivermectin apparently is effective on cattle, horses, jackasses and “delusional” elephants . 

After discharge from treatment, at least those users should be parasite free. But the rest of us, after an exasperating four years, see the continued side effects of the worst (stupidity!) parasite to ever infect America . Please be considerate of your fellow human being as we are all on this small planet together. Educate , Vaccinate and Vote !!!

Jonathan Schultz - Northwest side Tuscon Arizona

End surprise medical billing! A startling first person report from Arizona

I checked out the mission statement published by Carondelet (see asterisk below).  What is posted on the website does not match with the experience described in this letter to the editor.

An alarming letter to the editor about surprise medical billing published in Tuscon.com, an Arizona newspaper:

Letter: The U.S. must defend beneficiaries against surprise medical billings!

TUSCON, Arizona - Amen. Last year my wife was in car accident and I took her to Carondelet St. Marys Hospital* on Silverbell Road, for emergency treatment. After giving my insurance info to the receptionist and paying my deductible, my wife received 4 stitches from a nurse on her injured thumb. My insurance provider -- Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona-- paid the hospital almost immediately. Three months later I received a bill for $1180.00 from an out-of-state physicians billing service. It seems the emergency room medical staff at St. Marys are contractors, not regular employees. As such, they're out-of-network. At no time prior to my wife's treatment was I informed that the nurses services would not be covered by my insurance. My many attempts to address this with St.Marys was met with bureaucratic runaround that would make the Government blush. This billing scam needs to be addressed immediately by the State as a consumer fraud issue.

From Thomas McClure
West side Tuscon, Arizona

*Mission, Vision and Values: The Carondelet Health Network is a member of Tenet – a diversified healthcare services company which serves communities both nationally and internationally. 

We are united around a common mission to help people within the communities where we serve to live happier and healthier lives. 

We accomplish this by providing for the health care needs of our community; by embracing the whole person in mind, body, and spirit; and by serving all persons without distinction. We seek to serve our patients, customers, and our communities well; and to provide an exceptional environment for our employees and affiliated physicians.

We are guided by five (5) core values:
Quality – is at the core of our business and guides our actions and decisions.
Integrity – we manage our business and provide care and services with integrity and the highest ethical standards.
Service – we foster a culture of service that values teamwork and focuses on the needs of others.
Innovation – we support a culture of innovation that enables us to create strategies to address the challenges and opportunities that arise in healthcare.
Transparency – we operate with transparency by measuring our results and sharing our outcomes.

Sitting Together - Eliminate Hyper-partisanship

We know what it means to play nice in the sandbox. 

Therefore, wouldn't it be nice to see our elected US Congress follow the advice of the kindergarten teachers who taught us to play nicely together?  There's a proposal moving forward for Republicans and Democrats to sit side by side, rather than in separate blocks, during the State of the Union Speech (Tuesday January 25th), when President Obama leads our nation into a discussion of the goals and objectives under his administration.
No Labels supports this proposal.

No Labels is a political movement organizing with the purpose of eliminating hyperpartisanship in our government.  In other words, one purpose of No Labels is to balance the extremism currently creating the viral and toxic environment in media discussions about politics and public policy issues.  A crescendo of this hyperpartisanship reached deafening levels following the tragic assasination attempt on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tuscon, where 6 people were killed including a 9 year old girl, a US federal judge and a 30 year old congressional aide. 

Entirely too many people are, sadly, dead as a result of the Tuscon shooting incident. 

Although hyperpartisanship did not cause a crazy gunman to shoot innocent people in Tuscon, the poisionous tone of political rhetoric these days was vetted by the media as a result of the killings and assasination attempt.

Let's get behind the No Labels movement to end hyper-partisanship. In so doing, we support open discussion of issues without fear of retribution from anybody.  Freedom of Speech means just that, period.  We can debate issues for the purpose of resolving differences.  Compromise is how we all move forward.  Civics 101 teaches us that America's greatest moments came when our leaders engaged in compromise for the purpose of reaching a common goal. 

US history calls us to emulate the leadership of our founders.  They, too, had serious differences. Nonetheless, history teaches us how they put individual issues aside in order to form a more perfect nation.

Hopefully, the US Congress will take the lessons of this past tragic week in Tuscon very seriously, by leading us into an age whereby bipartisan discussion is supported rather than disdained.  Let's see our elected leaders sitting together during President Obama's State of the Union Address. 

Working together as Americans is a goal of No Labels. Let's eliminate hyper-partisanship in government.

Thank you to our kindergarten teachers for molding us according to The Golden Rule.  God Bless those who died in Tuscon. May we, the living, protect the freedoms we value to preserve our nation's future.  

Check www.nolabes.org.  Not Left, Not Right, Just Forward.