Executive Director of the Mountain Goat Trail Alliance Patrick Dean discusses the amazing success of this multi-use former rail bed.  Currently stretching across the Cumberland plateau from Sewanee to Tracy City, it is a perfect example of ecotourism. It conserves the natural environment also has improved the welfare of local people. What About Us? is honored to be a part of the TN Holler Podcast Network.

Anne Ferrell Quillen is the President of the recently formed and awesome TNDP rural caucus.  Although rural areas are represented by elected officials, they don’t seem to have us in mind when they vote with the GOP supermajority. Expanding Medicaid for rural hospitals, funding for public schools and infrastructure, and developing economic opportunities for our businesses, communities and way of life are all essential issues for rural Tennessee. We do make up 93% of the state. Let’s elect some...

Who chooses the President, the people, or the Electoral College?  “It’s complicated,” says my guest Dr. Andrea Hatcher, professor of politics and pre-law at The University of the South.  The founders would be surprised that we are still using this system despite its flaws and threat to democracy.  Would the popular vote be a more equitable way?  How could this be changed? Please vote. What About Us? is honored to be a part of the TN Holler Podcast Network.

Carol Abney, candidate for TN House District 38, knows about distressed counties and closed rural hospitals. Fentress and 3 other TN counties were removed from the bottom 10% of economic performers across the country but 2 more in this district remain on the list.  A licensed CPA, Carol discusses the tax burdens, limited resources, inaccessible medical care, and lack of job opportunities that keep rural residents distressed.  The TN Rural Initiative provides" window dressing” when real...

Senate Candidate District 16, Sheila Younglove, joins us again to answer the question: Why Medicaid Expansion is supported by every Democrat running for state office. It is because it is outrageous that affordable health care for thousands of Tennesseans has barely been discussed in the General Assembly since Governor Haslam’s Insure Tennessee was rejected in committee in 2014. With the pandemic, an estimated 750,000 Tennesseans could become uninsured! It is unlikely that the 3rd legislative...

Civil Miller-Watkins is running for State Senate District 26  and joins me to discuss TN’s plan for students to return to school amid a pandemic. She is a mother of 8, a current school board member, and is very familiar with homeschooling and virtual learning. The lack of state plans for managing COVID19 and school reopening as well as a lack of broadband in all rural areas makes learning more difficult in Tennessee.

Franklin High School’s mascot is a colonel and if you wonder if he is a Confederate - the school colors of blue and grey, fight song “Dixie” and the depiction of the bars and stars of the battle flag on the school seal make it obvious. Their mascot is a rebel against the United States to maintain slavery and a rebel against an order to desegregate schools, so no wonder African-American students and alumnae have asked for decades to have these symbols of oppression and exclusion removed. Guest...

What if we studied a truer version of history, with all its failed and bloody battles, gruesome beatings, lynching,  slavery and theft of land from Native Americans? Would we be a better nation, a better people?  Dr. John Willis, professor of history at...

The TN budget was cut by $1billion in June due to reduced revenue from the Covid 19 and financial crises.  The rainy day fund and Gov Lee's pet voucher program are  "safe" but public school teachers and  schoolchildren were kicked to the side of the...

Candidate for TN State Senate Sheila Younglove joins me to talk about how TN policies enacted by the General Assembly affect the lives of mothers and women in the state.  We begin with unspent federal dollars ($732 million) for  child care,...

We are in real trouble listeners.  Despite attempts to minimize the morbidity,  mortality  the economic devastation and the lack of leadership in responding to it, Covid 19 marches on killing over 120,000 Americans. Warnings ignored, testing delayed,...

A black American died under a policeman's knee on May 25 and the country said "enough".  Will we as rural Tennesseans say enough as well?  For over 150 years, the uplifting of symbols and leaders of a lost Civil War defined the South but now threaten to...

Are we  anti-abortion, pro-choice or  pro-life? It's an issue we have debated, fought with cruelty and violence over and divided ourselves with at least since Roe vs. Wade in 1973.  Why ,when we all agree that life is precious?  Because it has been made...

Refugee policy from the US to a Tennessee county government.

What is a virus, why is hand washing so important, aren't vaccines dangerous too?  You've heard what to do to prevent coronavirus but why? Dr. John Palisano is a biologist with experience in studying viruses and will give us the science and history...

Remember when you were in school and whined "I'm  never going to need to know this stuff"? Well, you were WRONG. We really need to know the things in science , history  and civics classes to be good citizens and decision makers and to know what is going...

Medicaid block grants nationally and in Tennessee

What about the future of farming in rural Tennessee?  My guest is Jessica Wilson, a "traditional" farmer in that she and her family have a farm that has animals and grows food. She is also a future farmer in that she is part of an organization that...

We begin Season 2 of "What about us?" A  discussion of policies that impact rural Tennesseans with interviews, discussion and personal stories on a variety of topics such as health care accessibility, small businesses, employment, education and the...

A recap of the podcast's first season.

Climate change and global warming, time to act like its a big deal-it is. The Green New Deal is a road map.

How to stop the Tennessee's Medicaid Block Grant Proposal

Gun violence in Tennessee is increasing annually with tragic results for women, children and teens with domestic abuse, unintentional shootings and suicide.

A discussion of the history of the 2nd Amendment and federal gun legislation.

The Constitution and what it says about executive power, Congress and Impeachment.