The Loyal Opposition

S03 E09 March 26, 2025

[00:00:00] Michele: Good afternoon, middle Tennessee. This is Michele Harbin

and Len Assante.

[00:00:26] Len: Hello everybody,

[00:00:26] Michele: and this is the Loyal Opposition coming to you live from

Portland, Tennessee and Sumner County. So Len, what's going on in the news

today?

[00:00:37] Len: Oh man. There is a lot going on in the news. Going on in the

news.

So much so that look at all these papers I had to print out. But what's really

exciting is our friend Mandy Cook is back with us.

[00:00:48] Mandy: Yeah. Thanks for having me back.

Sure. And Mandy's like our. I think we need to rebrand ourselves the indivisible

Tennessee Radio Network. Great. I can just come on and plug every week what

we're doing.

[00:00:59] Len: We're so [00:01:00] good with that. We are. That's part of why

we are here, part of what we do. Indivisible, you guys had a protest, held a

protest at Representative John Rose's Gallatin office last week. Before you tell

us about what's coming up, why don't you tell us how that went?

[00:01:13] Mandy: Yeah. It went really well. We had a good turnout. We had a

good press turnout. We had about 30 people show up, and I've seen stories

floating around. Yeah, I, the media covered it. I had no idea how many people

planned on showing up, so I was just pleased that there were more than a

handful of us.

[00:01:30] Michele: you said Thirtyish or So Yeah,

[00:01:31] Mandy: Yeah, about 30 people came out and John Rose, not

surprisingly, was not at his office. We were instead greeted by Ray Render, his

the lieutenant. Yes. Deputy Lieutenant Michele's buddy. Something. Oh, Ray,

go way back. Oh, Ray. Yeah, so Ray did hold a forum with us, which it was

good to be able to have a platform for people's voices and concerns to be heard.

He really didn't [00:02:00] answer any questions. He just took notes and the

beginning one was a little bit bizarre. He wanted everybody to sign a HIPAA

release, which I think was a little bit of a scare tactic.

A HIPAA release.

It was, yeah. He said it was very standard because that there were, because there

were press in the room. Oh gosh. Okay. We all know that's not true. So we got

off to a little bit of a rough start, but interesting. It was very bizarre. HIPPA.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But then once we got all that BS out of the way, then we

were able to actually have a chance to voice what we're concerned about.

[00:02:34] Michele: Ray is kind and he will listen. Yeah. But he's not who can

invoke real change for us.

[00:02:41] Mandy: Right. So, exactly. Yeah. So we have. I called John Rose's

office. We have showed up at John Rose's office. We talked to Ray Render

about getting on John Rose's schedule to try to hold something like a forum or a

town hall, and it doesn't seem like that's gonna [00:03:00] happen.

And he's running for governor. Yeah, so he has all of Tennessee to answer to

now. So I think if now, if any time, were gonna be the time to show up for your

constituents and Tennesseans in general. It would be now. Right, right. Yeah.

[00:03:17] Len: It should be now. Exactly. Exactly. Okay, so one protest down.

One down. One to go. Right, one to go. Yeah. Tell us about the next it.

[00:03:27] Michele: One protest, take it, one protest at a time.

[00:03:30] Mandy: Just like one day at a time. Because you just, you gotta

come up for air a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. So we were tipped off that John Rose is

gonna be at a Chamber of Commerce event. In downtown Gallatin at the station

from seven 30 to 9:00 AM on Friday since he won't come to us.

We're gonna come to him. It's a paid event. We're not chamber members, so we

obviously can't barge in, but he will be able to see us from from the windows.

And then we're planning on [00:04:00] attempting to get him to answer some of

our questions as he exits the building. So our plan is to be there at 8:00 AM and

hold down the fort until we see him leave the building.

[00:04:09] Michele: Do you wanna do another one of these on April 4th? I

wanna do one on April 5th.

That's gonna be the big, Lamberth and Hale will be at the Portland Chamber of

Commerce here. Okay. At, at our, at their new building from eight to 9:00 AM

on April 4th. So I already have a handful of people that are gonna go, they do

answer questions.

It's $10 to attend, but you do not have to be a Chamber member.

Oh, okay. So.

So I'll, I'll give you that link. Yeah, please, please do. If you can push that out

for me, then it would be great to have some progressive voices show up and

question them too. Yep. 'cause they'll be, if you pay to get in, you're in.

[00:04:44] Len: If you pay to get in, you're in. Exactly. Wow.

[00:04:46] Mandy: Okay. Yeah, that's a great opportunity and you just never

know. I mean, you really have to go hunting on some of these. Websites to find.

[00:04:54] Michele: Well, and Chambers of Commerce are a great place

because usually when it's an election or a [00:05:00] legislative, during

legislative season, almost yearly, they do these at least by yearly at the Portland

Chamber with the elected officials.

Yeah. So

[00:05:09] Len: they, and at the Gallatin Chamber, they have a monthly

breakfast where they invite various legislators each month to,

and this, I believe is one of those. So always there are opportunities if you know

where to look, they don't exactly publicize these things, of course.

[00:05:25] Michele: Right, right. The chambers do promote them, but you

know their memberships are limited. Right, right.

[00:05:31] Len: Exactly.

[00:05:31] Michele: Not if you're not a chamber member, you may not follow

your local about local chamber of commerce.

[00:05:35] Len: Sure. You're not gonna hear about it. Alright, so

[00:05:36] Michele: I'm, I'm a member of like seven local chambers of cars.

[00:05:41] Mandy: You got your fingers. Fingers on the dial.

[00:05:44] Michele: Michelle's gonna fingers on the pulse. It's work. It so

happens that I get legislative open.

[00:05:48] Len: Our woman on the inside,

[00:05:49] Michele: that's what we call her, a

[00:05:50] Len: woman on the inside. I got

[00:05:51] Michele: Wilson County, Rutherford County, Tennessee Pride.

[00:05:55] Len: Not Gallatin,

[00:05:56] Michele: not Gallatin yet.

[00:05:57] Len: Not Gallatin yet. Okay.

[00:05:58] Michele: But that's coming, right?

[00:05:59] Len: Alright, [00:06:00] so, Mandy hit it. Summarize one more time

for us. What's, who, what, where, where, when? Yeah.

[00:06:06] Mandy: 117 Main Street, downtown Gallatin in front of the station.

Uh, 8:00 AM maybe until 9:15. We really don't know when he plans to exit the

building, so we're just hoping to, to catch that. And our main ask is that he

publicly denounced DOGE and everything that they're doing, although it feels a

little crazy to be sitting here and saying that because the news cycle is so fast

and now even bigger things are bubbling up. So,

[00:06:40] Len: Exactly.

[00:06:41] Mandy: I guess I just am feeling like, you know what? You wanna

come ask John Rose anything? You come confront him about anything. There

you go. Right. Okay.

[00:06:49] Len: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Uh, where is, where is his commentary on

the. Lack of national security being, being [00:07:00] enacted by our top

defense officials here. You know, of course, Hillary Clinton had that email

server, the emails right. But gosh, using, what's it, is it Telegram or Signal? I

forget Signal, but using Signal that the Russians could be listening. I don't

know.

Okay. Alright. Well thank you Mandy. And, good luck and we, I'm sure we'll

have you back again.

[00:07:19] Michele: Yeah, we, we will need an update. We, and then we'll talk

about the next protest. Mm-hmm. And well, do you wanna talk about April 5th

real quick?

[00:07:25] Mandy: Yeah. So our, because this is like a national movement on

April 5th, correct? Exactly. Yep. We're hoping to mobilize nationwide.

Nashville will be holding their own indivisible hands-off protest at Centennial

Park.

I think the plan is 12:00 to 3:00 that just got nailed down a couple days ago. So

if you are interested, join your local Indivisible group. You can find them on the

Indivisible website. Type in your zip code. We've now made one for Sumner

County, so we are hoping to get Sumner County folks down to Nashville.

To boost [00:08:00] numbers and really make this a thing. But any area that

you're in, just go ahead and look up on Facebook or the Indivisible website.

[00:08:08] Michele: Are you seeing good response from some of your people?

[00:08:11] Mandy: Yeah, I feel like there's a little bit of a fire lit. It's another

one of those things where. I'm like, okay, what's this week gonna look like? Is it

gonna look even bigger? Is it gonna look smaller? It's just so hard to say

because

[00:08:23] Len: We, we gotta wait and see. We're gonna exactly. And we're

gonna see. Yeah, we're gonna see.

[00:08:26] Michele: Well, I'm excited about it. I, I think it's great.

[00:08:29] Len: Yeah, I'd love to see some protesting.

[00:08:30] Michele: Come on. We have to, we have to capitalize on the

momentum.

[00:08:32] Mandy: Absolutely.

[00:08:33] Len: Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Alright, thank you so much, and we

will undoubtedly be hearing more from you in the future. Before our first break

though, I do wanna run down some news headlines real quick. We do have a

full slate.

As we were saying, so much bad stuff is happening so quick. It's hard to keep

up with all of it, but we're gonna. Run down real quickly. Some of the news

headlines from the past week some of them [00:09:00] sponsored by our very

own here in Sumner County. Okay. Alright, here's a good one. A Republican

bill that passed the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday would give

pesticide and herbicide companies such as Bayer, which makes Roundup

broader protection from lawsuits.

[00:09:16] Michele: I've been seeing billboards promoting that too.

[00:09:20] Len: This is Senate bill 527, would provide legal immunity to

pesticide manufacturers as long as they're federally approved, labeled, doesn't

warn of a disease.

Roundup’s Environmental Protection Agency doesn't. Meaning under this

potential law, the company couldn't be sued for causing the disease measure

past five to six two with Republican support only. House Bill is up for, well,

actually it's up for consideration in the House Judiciary Committee today.

Right now the lobbyist for the Tennessee Farm Bureau said that this bill would

avert only cases involving product labels approved by the EPA. He contended,

companies can't control what goes on in those labels. I. However, Bayer

[00:10:00] has hired the Bivins lobbying group whose political action

committee has given Stevens the sponsor $12,000 in the last five years, the fifth

most of any donor according to political spending database. Okay. We

understand that farmers have a need to use chemicals in order to maximize their

crops. However, opponents of the bill countered it would remove people's

constitutional rights to a jury trial when they're diagnosed with deadly forms of

cancer, such as non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

A jury last week in Georgia ordered Bayer, the parent company of Monsanto,

who makes Roundup to pay almost 2.1 billion. That's with a B folks, to a man

who claimed he contracted the disease from using the company's roundup weed

killer. Similar legislation to what we see in Tennessee has already been rejected

in Iowa, Missouri, Idaho, Wyoming, and Mississippi.

Yet Bayer, Monsanto hasn't pulled the product from the shelves even while

facing more than 170,000. [00:11:00] individual lawsuits leading opponents to

say the chemical maker is clearly more concerned with increasing earnings.

Then protecting people. Okay. This is a concerted effort by Bayer to go state to

state and try to get this immunity.

Said Danny Dennis, the president of the Tennessee Trial Lawyers Association,

[00:11:17] Michele: What better state to start with than Tennessee.

[00:11:19] Len: Exactly, exactly. Here's another good one. A bill, a Republican

bill seeks to dissolve the Tennessee Human Rights Commission. Okay. They

tried this last year and couldn't do it, so they're trying again.

This year. The bill seeks to 10 to dissolve the human's, right. Commission and

in doing so, would dismiss more than 1000 pending cases before the

commission and transfer those functions to the Tennessee Attorney General.

The proposed bill by representative Johnny Garrett of Goodlettsville and John

Stevens of Huntington, would transfer the commission's responsibilities to a

newly created civil rights division within the office of the Attorney [00:12:00]

General.

An attorney general who's known not exactly for embracing similar. Civil rights

and attacking DEI initiatives whenever he has the chance, all pending

discrimination complaints before the commission would be dismissed. Okay. So

the commission's executive director, Muriel Nolan, urged lawmakers to vote

against the bill or amend it to include a wind down period, allowing current

cases to go forward.

Wow. And of course they voted against it so Human Rights Commission sounds

like a good thing. Hmm. Sounds like a good thing. Perhaps maybe instead of

dissolving it, they should fund it adequately so those 1000 cases can get

resolved. How about that? Speaking of funding, we've got the money. The

governor yesterday unveiled his blood supplementary budget.

The amendment to his original budget. More on that in a minute, but the Lee

administration ironically, has told lawmakers that starting next year, which will

be his last year [00:13:00] in office, by the way, they're gonna wanna start

borrowing money for road construction. I. Tennessee has long resisted

borrowing money for infrastructure projects, which has kept the state in good

fiscal position.

But however, depending on who you ask, there's between 39 - 7 billion $ in

backlog of infrastructure projects. Some of those right here in Sumner County.

[00:13:23] Michele: That's why we need pot for potholes.

[00:13:25] Len: Exactly. Pot for potholes. Representative. Representative Behn

offered a great op. It's like the easiest solution ever.

The solution right. Uh, interestingly enough, Lee has overseen one of the most

significant budget increases in state history. $10 billion increased in his watch.

Much muchly due to the economy, but also he has spent much of the surplus

generated by this booming economy on business tax cuts, a huge increase in

education spending vouchers.

Right. Imagine if Lee had come in with infrastructure at his [00:14:00] top as

his top priority instead of school vouchers and tax cuts for big corporations that

reside out of state. Anyway, the budget amendment that has been introduced

includes $20 million for charter school facilities, another five and a half million

for the Department of Safety and Homeland Securities new Immigration

Enforcement Bureau, which was created in the special session.

That's designed to do federal policy and crack down on immigrants. Another

$28 million is going to nursing homes to provide care for needy people. That

sounds great. However, the state has accumulated a billion dollars in that

account, but is only releasing 28 million. The governor's plan also includes

providing money to several organizations that he seems to have a personal

interest in, including Men of Valor, a prison ministry that he has participated in

and a host of, and church groups, for example, for some reason that no one is

able to explain [00:15:00] $1 million is going to the Church of Christ of God in

Memphis.

When Senator Jeff Yarborough said, lawmakers need a clearer statement on the

benefit of funding these organizations. Uh, he was told that one GOP Senator

called those questions nickel and dime stuff and said the admin administration

will explain it on the back end. In other words, after the budget has been

crushed, after the budget has been passed, Senator Yarborough, a democrat from

Nashville calls that idea bad budgeting and bad morality.

Finally, folks, before we go on to our break, last GOP bill criminalizes out-of-

state IDs and undermines state cooperation. Multiple states have passed laws

allowing undocumented people to obtain driver's licenses to promote road

safety and insurance coverage. Tennessee, of course, is going the opposite

direction.

Not only do we want to not give driver's licenses to people, we want to

invalidate out of state licenses issued under these other states, under those

circumstances, and criminalize the [00:16:00] drivers for their behavior of

driving with a license that was issued to them legally by another state. Bill sets

a very dangerous precedent.

First of all, it sounds to me prima facie that it's unconstitutional, violation of the

commerce clause, which is designed to make sure that states abide by

agreements created by other states. I. And Tennessee is willing to re reject the

laws and acted by other states that would create a legal nightmare to say the

least.

[00:16:29] Michele: So there was one good bill that made it out of community.

[00:16:32] Len: I'll leave it to Michele to come up with something good.

[00:16:34] Michele: The, the bill, I can't remember the number, but even our

Senator Hale was a co-sponsor, but it's the Fertility and Contraception

Protection Act.

[00:16:46] Len: And that has made

[00:16:47] Michele: it out of committee.

[00:16:49] Len: That looks like, like it might be on the way to Passage.

[00:16:50] Michele: That would be good if it passed. I think Behn and um Oh,

Heidi.

[00:16:56] Len: Heidi Campbell. Campbell and Campbell were on that.

[00:16:58] Michele: Yeah, there there were some good [00:17:00] co-sponsors.

[00:17:00] Len: So, alright folks, we're gonna pay some bills. We're gonna take

a break. When we come back, it's gonna be,

[00:17:05] Michele: Sally, with Shout Your Cause.

[00:17:07] Len: There you go. You're listening to The Loyal Opposition

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Opposition.

[00:18:00] Len: Welcome back everyone. You're listening to The Loyal

Opposition here in Portland, Tennessee on a beautiful, sunny Wednesday

afternoon, Michele. It is a nice day out.

[00:18:09] Michele: It is a nice day, and I'm taking my kids over to one of their

friend's house after this. And we're gonna do yoga in the backyard.

[00:18:15] Len: Backyard yoga.

[00:18:16] Michele: We'll see how that goes with seven, eight, and 9-year-old

boys.

[00:18:18] Len: Yeah, that sounds like it's gonna be real smooth. So in real

smooth operation, it's gonna be. So in speaking of smooth operations, we've got

a guest.

[00:18:26] Michele: We do have a guest. I'm very excited about our guest. It's

my friend Sally. Say, hi, Sally.

[00:18:32] Sally: Hey Sally. I'm Sally.

[00:18:35] Michele: There's a new song out called, uh, Sally when the Run

Wine Runs Out. Have heard it?

[00:18:40] Sally: I heard that. I heard that recently. Yes.

[00:18:41] Michele: I love it. I think of you when I listen to it too, because it's

Sally. It's talking about Sally. So Sally's here with us today and she has an

organization called Shout Your Cause, which is also a podcast and she is a

social influencer.

With that handle across all the platforms, you can [00:19:00] find her

everywhere at Shout Your Cause. So we wanted to have her on and let her tell

us a little bit about what she's doing. She's also an author podcaster, like I said,

social media influencer. So we're not gonna have any shortage of things to talk

about today.

[00:19:14] Len: Absolutely not. And since we like to shout about our causes.

That's right. We thought this would might be a nice, some nice symmetry.

[00:19:21] Michele: Yep, that's right. So we always start with the first question

is, what landed you in the chair at The Loyola Opposition?

[00:19:30] Sally: Well, Michele landed me in the chair here because Michele

happens to be my tie to all of the.

What would you call it? Suburban counties? Yeah. You know the ones around

Nashville. I live in Nashville in Davidson County and Michele is in Sumner

County and she's gotten me involved in the politics around. Around the area,

basically.

[00:19:51] Michele: Yeah. Me and Sally did some cool things back starting,

probably early fall leading into the election where we highlighted different

[00:20:00] democratic county party candidates from across the mid-state.

And so that, that was a fun project in getting to know those candidates. From, I

don't know, it's like eight or nine counties that we ended up spotlighting.

[00:20:12] Sally: Yeah, we spotlighted that. We spotlighted candidates and then

we also had some on, 'cause we went live several times on TikTok and were

able to communicate that way and talk to people.

[00:20:24] Michele: Yeah. And so Sally and I we met in 2015 and I, the time

she was just, you were just starting out really turning social media into a

business. So, why don't you talk a little bit about your social media journey,

how it started and how it led you to activism online now?

[00:20:44] Sally: Well, I've always dabbled in software and I started dabbling in

marketing software to help out a friend, and it seemed like something that I

wanted to get into and I was really enjoying it.

My career though, I was an actuary for 25 years, and so [00:21:00] I was doing

statistics for insurance, pricing, that sort of thing, and thinking about doing

creative marketing is a completely 180, you know. It sure is. Yeah. Everything's,

everything's different upside down, and I jumped into it. With both feet and left

my career in 2016 and have been going ever since.

I've gone through different phases of teaching also starting the podcast.

[00:21:30] Michele: Yeah. I've been in, I've enrolled in multiple courses that

Sally has hosted conferences that she has hosted. I've learned so much about

brand creation and brand marketing from Sally. And tell us about your book that

is related to that.

[00:21:49] Sally: I did write a book, it's called “Know Me, Like Me, Trust Me”.

Building influence on social Media. And, or at least that's, that sounds like what

the [00:22:00] subtitle is a little bit more. And anyway, the book came out a

couple of years ago and it was a hit. And the being a hit meaning that I've had

customers come to me from that.

So it was a good thing to do. I've just self-published on Amazon.

[00:22:16] Michele: It's a really easy read. So you can find that on Amazon. We

can link that in the show notes. It's got some puzzles.

[00:22:22] Len: Yes, we can.

[00:22:24] Michele: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's great. It's like I said, and it just

walks you through the journey of creating a brand. So how did that turn into

activism online?

[00:22:35] Sally: Everything that pissed me off. I had to talk about it.

[00:22:41] Len: So kinda same here. Yeah.

[00:22:42] Sally: I was so used to talking on social media about anything and

everything that I just couldn't keep talking about politics on my personal page

all the time, and so I decided to create an outlet for it. And Shout Your Cause

has gone from being just an idea to [00:23:00] social media handles across the

board to a full website, blog, podcast, Substack. I’m doing daily things on

TikTok and Instagram and Facebook and growing all the time and meeting

people and being able to highlight what I consider to be either underdog causes

or underdog, situations that maybe don't get. The right education out there for

people to know what's going on.

Yeah. And politics, right. Fits in with it so well.

[00:23:34] Len: Yes. Yes.

[00:23:34] Sally: And I kind of ebb and flow through like maybe I'm

highlighting a nonprofit this month or or I'm highlighting candidates throughout

the election season. But, it. I'm just gonna have to see where it goes next

because the podcast started with me wanting to get the raw reactions of people

when Covid first started in 2020.

[00:23:55] Michele: Oh, wow. I guess I didn't realize that. Wow.

[00:23:59] Len: So you've [00:24:00] been doing it for five years then? Yeah.

Podcast for five years.

[00:24:02] Sally: Yeah. I’m on season eight. Oh wow. Season eight. Okay. 75

episodes, I think.

[00:24:07] Len: Pretty good. That's fantastic. It's pretty, that's fantastic. It's, uh,

there are a lot of podcasts out there, but not all of them last that long.

So that's a, that is a, that is a testament to your, to your work. Is your subscriber

base growing? We're always like trying to get more subscribers. How do we do

that? How do we do that? Are you happy with yours?

[00:24:28] Sally: Probably not. I was happiest with it previously, a couple of

years ago when I really had a lot of traction on my website and everything.

But things changed in my career a little bit, and so I, I didn't put as much effort

into

[00:24:44] Michele: growing that,

[00:24:45] Sally: the digital marketing side of it. But I've got 50,000 followers

on TikTok that I talk to every day, and my Substack is starting to grow, and so

everything is, it evolves and, and it just [00:25:00] evolves over time.

And we'll see just where it goes next.

[00:25:03] Michele: Yeah. And it's crazy how engagement ebbs and flows

across platforms because leading up to the election, prior to TikTok getting shut

down and reinstated we had great engagement on TikTok.

[00:25:19] Len: Yeah.

[00:25:19] Michele: Tens of thousands of views for most every post. And then

we've seen that dwindle, and Sally and I were talking before the show, now

she's getting a lot of engagement on Instagram and I'm getting more

engagement on Facebook.

So it's just, you never know. You have to post on all of 'em and engage wherever

the people are. Yeah. You know? So you just,

[00:25:40] Len: our growth has been Facebook primarily. It has been. That's,

that's. That's where we're seeing the most growth. But in terms of podcast

followers, we're getting, most of them are coming from our website.

They, they land on the website for whatever reason, www loyal opposition

online. And from there they can subscribe to the feed, right? [00:26:00] And the

website numbers tell us that is a big, that is one of the big ways we have of

getting subscribers. Yeah. And I was surprised by that. My focus for, and I

stopped earlier this year because I'm still writing a book.

I'm writing a fiction, historical fiction novel about growing up in a racist family

in West Tennessee. And I'm writing it about a character named Sonny, but it's

really about me to be honest with you. And most of the book is actually true,

but I've grown almost 7,000 subscribers that went, got on my wait list from my

book.

So that's where I focused a lot of my effort on growing. Shout Your Cause and

those people do get updates from me with what I'm doing with Shout Your

Cause now.

[00:26:43] Michele: So that, and that's a great way to grow your following, and

it's something that Attach, Sally has taught is you create some kind of free

download or a wait list for something and people sign up for it.

You capture their email and then you nudge them [00:27:00] to subscribe.

[00:27:01] Len: Okay, Sally, for our listeners we probably should, we like use

your full name at least once.

[00:27:06] Michele: Yeah. Why don't you just tell us a little bit about Sally,

your name

[00:27:09] Len: about yourself and tell us what your website is and what we'll

do is we'll put that out on our website as well and promote it in the show notes,

but if people are listening and wanna get more information about you, let 'em

know.

[00:27:18] Sally: Okay. Well my name is Sally Hendrick, not Hendricks, it's

ICK. Just a single Hendrick. Yeah, just a single one. Hendrick. Even though my

father-in-law is Jimmy Hendrick is there. Really? He is. That's funny. And I live

in Nashville downtown. I was a pioneering family, taking my three kids to move

into a, a loft apartment in the middle of the city when they were nine and nine

and five years old.

So a little crazy. Yeah. But i, my husband is Robert Hendrick. We own rail yard

studios. We make furniture out of railroad parts and I handle some of the

business with them during the day.

[00:27:57] Michele: And they even partner with [00:28:00] Olden here in

Portland. What do you make? Yeah, they build, build, uh, pool tables. Pool

[00:28:03] Len: tables with olden pool, pool tables.

[00:28:06] Michele: Out of old railroad parts.

[00:28:09] Len: Parts. Yeah. So I was thinking of building some kind of like

station in my house for the podcasting and the broadcast and the recording and

all that kind of an audio. I was, and they have all these, ones you can buy

online, but I was like, yeah, it's something cool, something different.

Can you make a podcast? Yeah. Absolute studio desk. Absolutely. Out of

railroad ties,

[00:28:25] Sally: I never know what that man can come up with. He's a great

designer.[00:28:30] Michele: yeah they're, his offices are cool. It's desk and like

beautiful pieces of furniture. And then they have the Railroad Graffiti Museum.

[00:28:40] Len: Yes. It's called the Graff Museum. And we've collected graffiti.

We have about 35 pieces in the collection right now, and we're talking about a

lot of these are the, an entire side of a train car, and we really, I love trains. Yes.

Wow. Cool. We have the famous [00:29:00] scene of Johnny Cash flipping off

the wardens at Folsom Prison. Oh my gosh. That is cool. We have Louis

Armstrong playing a trumpet. We have a lot of really great. Fun pieces.

[00:29:11] Michele: That's so cool. That is cool. The graffiti. Yeah. Lynn, you

would enjoy it for sure? I think so. I think I would. You would definitely enjoy

it.

[00:29:19] Sally: But that's my husband, so I'm on the other side of things

talking all the time.He's drawing and I'm talking.

[00:29:28] Michele: Well, I mean, she runs all the social media for, yeah,

railroad. Railroad. What is it? Rail Yard Studios. Rail Yard Studios. So y'all can

check that out.

[00:29:35] Len: I know nothing about small business, thus the success of TLO

media today. But one thing I have learned is that it's important to have partners

with differing complimentary skill sets, right?

Um, so, you know, if you're not good at sales, but your partner is, if, if you, if

you're great at social media, but your partners is, good with his or her hands,

right? So you to make a good partnership in [00:30:00] business kind, I guess,

kinda like in marriage, you gotta have. Bring different skill sets to the thing.

That's Right. Right, right. Um, I've never been married, but does that, does that

metaphor kind of? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

[00:30:09] Michele: Me and Ronnie are basically polar opposites, so pretty

much,

[00:30:16] Len: but it works.

[00:30:17] Michele: It does work. It works very well. You know, it'd be 20

years dating in August or June. June. So

[00:30:23] Len: 20 years. Yeah. Gee,

[00:30:26] Sally: wow.

Yeah, we're 31. Yeah. Cool.

[00:30:31] Len: Hey tell us about the different stuff you do. Talking about, we

talked a little bit about your social media. What do you, what is the website?

What's the purpose of the website? For Shout Your Cause.com.

[00:30:42] Sally: The website, right. And the podcast is Shout Your Cause with

Sally Hendrick because I'm interviewing people for the most part. Lately I've

been doing news updates because I've been lazy about getting interviews, but

you know, again, like I said before, ebb and [00:31:00] flow between the

seasons and what's going on and what needs to be put out there.

[00:31:04] Michele: Exactly, exactly.

[00:31:05] Sally: And right now the news is probably the most important, the

opposition news, if you will, because we need to hear what the effects of DOGE

and. Trump and all these things that are happening.

[00:31:19] Michele: Yeah. And just like, you know, the, at the top of the show,

all these things that Len always talks about. I hadn't heard all that about the,

about the Roundup.

[00:31:30] Sally: Oh yeah. That's scary. When I was an actuary, Monsanto was

one of our clients.

[00:31:35] Len: Oh, wow.

Oh man. But I can't talk about that. Okay, we'll, we'll, we'll stop you not talking

about it.

[00:31:44] Michele: Let's talk about, let's talk about “Humble Pie”.

[00:31:47] Len: Okay? Yeah. Let's talk Humble Pie”.

[00:31:48] Michele: So, “Humble Pie” is Tennessee historical fiction that Sally

is writing and it's a book. Yes. So tell us about that.

[00:31:56] Sally: The book started out me telling stories about my [00:32:00]

grandmother when she was a child. When I was a child and hanging out with

her. She would tell me stories about her when she was a child.

And the, just to give you an idea, the the wait list chapter, the free chapter that I

give to people is her telling a story about being five years old and begging her

brother to take her down to the crossing. Which was the railroad crossing. And

she had heard, overheard a conversation that a black man was hanging in the

square and she wanted to go and see.

And of course her mother was like, oh, no, no, you cannot take, you know, you

cannot take her down to the square. This is what's happened, et cetera. Well, that

story had been told to be by my grandmother, but when I asked my father about

it, he didn't know about it. And when I asked my uncle, he didn't know about it.

So I did a little bit of research and I found the man who had been hanged when

she was five years old, [00:33:00] so it was a real story. And that just gave me

chances

[00:33:04] Michele: here in, in West Tennessee. Right?

[00:33:05] Sally: It was in West Tennessee and in Humboldt, Gibson County. It

might have been in Trenton, instead of Humboldt where the hanging happened,

because that's the county seat.

But I, I'm not sure. I, I just know that when I wrote the chapter, I centered it

around the crossing because that's where her family had business. We, my

family, uh, they were the, they started the canning industry of fruits and

vegetables in west Tennessee, and they had cotton farms and. Obviously a lot of

help on the farm.

[00:33:36] Michele: Yeah, yeah,

[00:33:37] Sally: yeah.

[00:33:38] Michele: That was the, the times, you know, and so I bet it's been

fascinating going down these rabbit holes trying to research for your book.

Right.

[00:33:46] Sally: It's been very therapeutic. It's been frustrating and angering at

times.

[00:33:52] Len: How long, how long has it taken and how long do you expect it

will take start to finish?

[00:33:58] Sally: Well, I wrote about [00:34:00] 28 chapters a couple of years

ago, and I probably wrote that over about a year, 28 or year, year and a half

maybe.

[00:34:06] Michele: And you were focused? I was very focused.

[00:34:09] Sally: Every week

[00:34:10] Michele: you had, goals you were setting and

[00:34:12] Mandy: Yes, and I was, and I, I was in a writing club every week

and that helped too.

[00:34:16] Len: Ah, yes, that definitely helps. Yeah. Yes.

[00:34:18] Sally: But then I started working with a developmental editor and I

got the kick in the pants I needed. On really focusing the story because I was

trying to tell too many things, too many timeframes, too much going on, and I

really needed to find the flow, a cementing event that covered the entire book

and then learn how to roll in the memories in that with the stories and the

hanging out with my grandmother when I was little because I stayed with her all

the time.

[00:34:54] Michele: Wow. And, and, and, I could probably tell similar

[00:35:00] stories from our family growing up in Alabama, because just being

in the south, sure. You know, Lynn's from New York, so you probably don't

have that kind of history here.

[00:35:11] Len: Our, we had racism. It was just, it was different.

[00:35:15] Michele: Right.

[00:35:16] Len: It was still there. It was just, different. But yeah, no it's when I

came down here it was the culture shock for, in regard to that. And still in

certain places, Nashville, you don't, in the city you don't see it much. But yeah,

occasionally I'd see I'd see some things that like, wow, it just blew my mind.

Even, in the 21st century,

[00:35:35] Michele: yeah.

[00:35:36] Len: You were, so you were talking about earlier when you said,

when Michelle asked you what got this started and you said, everything that

was pissing you off. Was there one particular issue that you started out with

shouting about? Or was it just general anger, or how did focus that?

[00:35:55] Sally: I think it was when Donald Trump decided to run for

president. Okay. [00:36:00] And for some reason I already had this feeling

about him, this intuition about him that So this is the first time? Yeah, the first

time. Mm-hmm. 2016.

[00:36:13] Michele: Yeah. Yeah. And I think a lot of people felt that, that's

when I got involved in politics was after he won the first, his first term.

Um, and it's just. It's so disheartening. I does have no way.

[00:36:29] Len: And it's, you know, and it's, it's, it's so strange to me that, I've

met two groups of women in my life, group of women who absolutely despise

the man and women who absolutely love him and adore him and think he's the

greatest thing and considering his track record, track record with women over

the years, and this isn't stuff that's conjecture, this is stuff that's been proven

multiple times in courts of law that have occurred. You would think women

would be turned off by this, that they wouldn't want someone who is essentially

a [00:37:00] sexual harasser who seems to not have the most highest opinion of

women. But there's a group of women out there who love them. White women

helped give women the reelection,

[00:37:10] Michele: well, and then another thing, Sally, I know you work hard

now to get Democratic candidates elected, but you haven't always been like a

die hard democrat. It's not, it's like how you work closely identify now.

[00:37:22] Sally: Right now, yes. I've always been more on the independent

side and for a long time my track record was pretty even across the board.

[00:37:31] Michele: Mm-hmm. Especially in Tennessee. Yeah. 'cause

sometimes you have to, yeah. But

[00:37:35] Sally: not since Obama. Yeah, I, I've, I've been on the Democratic

side since Obama.

[00:37:40] Michele: Yep. Things have really changed in the Republican party.

[00:37:44] Sally: I can consider it John McCain, but when Sarah Palin stepped

up Yeah. I was like, what is this cuckoo

[00:37:51] Len: Exactly. And that, and that's true what Michelle just said.

Things have really changed in the Republican party. Mm-hmm. You know, there

are people who complain about the Democratic party being pulled too far to

[00:38:00] the left by some popular democratic national level, democratic

politicians, but.

I mean, but I think the real story is how far to the right, the Republican party. I

mean, it's become a, it's, the party of law and order and strong national defense

and fiscal responsibility has become the party of, let's see how many people we

can hate, uh, and it's, it's, uh,

[00:38:21] Michele: yeah. And if you look at national debt. A chart of national

debt and how much it goes up under Republican rule.

[00:38:29] Len: Yeah. Yeah. The deficit increased more under Trump than it

had done on under any previous president before that. But, oh, we're for fiscal

responsibility and balanced budgets, well, you don't vote like that, you know?

[00:38:41] Michele: and smaller government.

[00:38:42] Len: And smaller government. Yeah. And so, and of course, doge is,

trying to, end the government as we know it, but. And, and I can see an

argument for smaller, more efficient, leaner government in some cases, right?

But to do it the way they're doing it, just without any analysis or without any

input from the agencies or from the [00:39:00] inspectors general, just going in

and kind of slashing and burning without regard to what it's gonna do around

the world or to people's lives just doesn't seem like the right way to do it.

[00:39:10] Michele: It doesn't. Let's take our last break.

[00:39:13] Len: I guess we have to. Michelle says we're taking a break, so we're

taking a break, paying some bills. Be right back here with The Loyal

Opposition.

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[00:40:56] Michele: Welcome back to The Loyal Opposition, and we are

wrapping up [00:41:00] our show. The hour always goes by so fast. Time flies

when you're having fun. So Sally, to close out with you. Remind everyone

where they can follow and subscribe.

[00:41:14] Sally: Everything is under Shout Your Cause. So TikTok website,

Instagram, Facebook, it's all there.

[00:41:22] Michele: Awesome. She's so easy.

[00:41:24] Len: Substack and Substack. That's a good substack shout. Here you

go. Of all of those, which is your favorite. Gosh, probably the podcast. Really?

The podcast? Okay. Yeah. And TikTok, because I think Michelle would say

TikTok, right? Yeah. I like Daily TikTok, but I love doing the podcast.

[00:41:41] Michele: Sally's great on TikTok. She's awesome.

[00:41:45] Len: I'm not a podcast fan, but I love doing this podcast because

basically because of all the cool people I get to meet. We've had over a hundred

guests on the show, and over the two and a half years we've been doing it and

been meeting some really cool people. And you see. [00:42:00] So much

horrible stuff going on in the world. But then you get people in the show

coming on the show who are doing such good, you know, I keep thinking about

Jason Rogan and him helping the kids in the basketball camp. Right? Yeah.

And, um, you know, all the other people,

[00:42:13] Michele: the F.I.N.D. Design.

[00:42:14] Len: yeah.

I mean the, those two women were so, um, inspiring to me. Yeah. And so that I

may not like listening to podcasts, but I sure do like talking to people on a

podcast. Okay folks, we are almost out of time, but hey, we have got several

announcements that we have to make. First of all, I want to of course welcome

our new sponsors.

As you know, folks, the show is sponsored by Artemis, CPA, who is our new

sponsor. You've heard Michelle doing the ads on the breaks, I'm sure, and the

law offices of Amanda J. Gentry. So we want to thank. Artemis and Amanda for

their support for our show. Next week we have a special show. We're gonna start

a half hour early start at 4:30.

4:30 okay? And this is gonna be our organizing round table. With [00:43:00] the

with Emerge Tennessee and Organize Tennessee. So I think that's gonna be a

really interesting show. We're gonna talk about how to get organized and what

we can do

[00:43:08] Michele: to, and recruiting candidates and

[00:43:09] Len: recruit candidates and what we can do to, energize the

resistance.

Right. This Saturday we, the Sumner County Democratic Party is gonna be

hosting their biannual reorganization meeting, and that's at 10:00 AM doors

open at nine 30 10:00 AM at the Sumner County Administration building in.

Gallatin. And last I heard last night, Michelle, we have over a hundred people

have already pre-registered to attend that.

[00:43:32] Michele: That's amazing. And we almost have at least one person

running in every,

[00:43:37] Len: in all the different offices. Commission district.

[00:43:39] Michele: For the executive committee.

[00:43:41] Len: So I think that Is that including your truly including, yeah. Like

Michelle doesn't have enough to do. And of course finally coming up, we'll be

back next week with our new guests from Emerge and Organize and as always,

check kind over to our [00:44:00] website where you can find out all of the

events that we are hooked up with on our website.

Just go over there and click events. And you can also take action. You can write

your senators, your representatives, your congress people, your, your county

commissioners, your alderman, your city council folks, all directly from the

website. So if something that you heard on today's show. Irked you and you

wanna say something about it, head on over to the loyal opposition.online and

we can help you.

Express your feelings, right?

[00:44:30] Michele: That's right.

[00:44:30] Len: Okay. Alright, well listen folks, we are just about out of time,

so we're gonna say goodnight. For the loyal opposition. I am Len Assante. And

I'm Michele Harbin.

We have been The

[00:44:41] Michele: Loyal O pposition.

[00:44:43] Len: See you next [00:45:00] week.