Misrule of Law founder, Blount County conservative activist, and retired attorney Mark Pulliam joined host Michael Patrick Leahy on The Tennessee Star Report newsmaker line Tuesday to discuss, among many things, a shocking discovery at his local library and how what he found resulted in a major change in how Tennessee libraries pick materials for their children’s sections.
TRANSCRIPT
Michael Patrick Leahy: 6:18 a.m., broadcasting live from our studios on Music Row in Nashville, Tennessee.
We welcome to our newsmaker line right now, our very good friend, a retired attorney, Blount County resident, and grassroots activist; the owner of a great website, Misrule of Law: A Chronicle of Legal and Judicial Mischief, Mr. Mark Pulliam.
Good morning, Mark.
Mark Pulliam: Good morning, Michael. It’s good to be back.
Michael Patrick Leahy: It’s always great to have you on.
Hey, Mark, I don’t want to get into this detail because it’s more of a national issue, but you had a great, great article at Misrule of Law that was also picked up by Instapundit and RealClearPolicy and I think Powerline – “Rogue Prosecutors: The Legal Road to Dystopia” where you basically eviscerate Alvin Bragg in New York, and Kim Fox in Chicago, and Larry Krasner, and Kimberly Gardner – all these Soros prosecutors.
It’s a great read. I highly recommend it. Well done.
Mark Pulliam: Well, thank you.
People hear about Soros-funded prosecutors, but they don’t understand how serious a problem it is.
About 70 million people in the United States live under the regime of prosecutors funded by George Soros who simply are not doing their job, and it is creating chaos; it’s going to lead to anarchy – and a lot of these, most of these, they’re all elected.
So people need to stop electing these crazy people.
Michael Patrick Leahy: No kidding, a good point.
I want to get back to, we’ve had some exchanges that I thought were very interesting. And you’re really very well known as a conservative grassroots activist in Blount County, and one of the things that you’ve talked about is that you were surprised when you moved from Texas to Tennessee that there’s a disconnect, I think, sometimes between the conservative grassroots and the Republican establishment.
You’ve actually worked very hard to try to kind of be a conservative, populist, constitutional grassroots activist working within the system.
The system has not been always that welcoming to you, Mark.
Mark Pulliam: No, it’s not. And in fact, we had Kurt Riley from the Sumner County Constitutional Republican speaking to our group here in Blount County last night and talking about how people can kind of organize themselves to accomplish these grassroots goals without having the infrastructure of a Republican Party that is friendly to them.
Now, it would be easier if you had a party structure to work with, but people can and elsewhere in the state of Tennessee have worked around that. And we’re going to try to join that movement.
Michael Patrick Leahy: Have you had any success whatsoever in opening up lines of communication with the Republican Party here in state of Tennessee?
Or do you continue to get the cold shoulder from them?
Mark Pulliam: Well, I don’t want to dwell on the negative part of it.
I have a success story that, as far as I know, has gone unreported in Tennessee media that I’m going to talk about this morning on your show.
Michael Patrick Leahy: Tell me!
Mark Pulliam: Secretary of State Tre Hargett is listening to the grassroots.
And earlier this year, as part of my campaign of paying attention to what’s going on in my community, I visited our local library and was astonished to see a number of highly inappropriate, even pornographic books in the children’s section of the library. And I checked these books out in order to take them home and read them, and many of them, the worst ones, if you open the title page, had a stamp.
That says, “Regional Library.” And I didn’t know what the “Regional Library” was, so I contacted the “Regional Library.”
And apparently, this is a statewide system that is under the supervision of Secretary of State Tre Hargett. And I said, ‘Why do these pornographic books contain a stamp of the Regional Library?’
They said, ‘Well, we dispense about 1.5, 1. 6 million dollars a year to local public libraries in Tennessee, for them to buy books, and they pick whatever books they want, and we just procure them for them. We’re like a buying service. And we don’t regulate it.’
And I said, ‘Well you need to be regulating this. This stuff is terrible,’ and I provided examples.
Well, lo and behold, within a relatively short period of time, Secretary of State Tre Hargett has adopted and implemented new guidelines that every public library in Tennessee, if they wish to receive technical support or financial assistance from the state, has to sign this agreement that they prohibit obscene materials, child pornography, and other inappropriate material from coming into contact with minors.
They will have to rate the books for age appropriateness, that the public has a right to challenge the age-appropriate designation given to books; makes library directors personally responsible for all the books that are acquired and that are shelved in the library; makes lists of newly acquired books subject to public disclosure.
It’s literally a home run.
And this is because Tre Hargett listened to me, responded to emails, had his staff go to work, and as a result, what we’ve been reading about from elsewhere in the country, you know, parents banging their head against the wall because the library – their local library – is under the control of the American Library Association.
Tre Hargett is pushing back.
And I think that qualifies as good news and as a grassroots victory.
Michael Patrick Leahy: Well, congratulations on that, Mark. And I know sometimes it feels like the grassroots push, push, push for constitutional conservative actions and don’t get a lot of result, but that that is a result.
Mark, what advice would you have for our listeners who look at this and say, ‘You know I want to be involved in grassroots activities but I don’t feel like I’ve got the home that I would like to have had within the Republican Party.’
I know some people feel that way.
What advice would you have for them?
Mark Pulliam: I would say don’t despair.
You know, the Tennessee Republican Party is going to do what it’s going to do.
It’s ultimately controlled by 66 people on the state executive committee.
They just passed some new bylaws that, among other things, is going to keep Robbie Starbuck from running for office for a decade for the crime of filing a lawsuit against the Tennessee Republican Party.
But there are things that you can do, particularly in your community.
And, you know, another example, this one does not have such a happy ending, is we have a very conservative local district attorney, Ryan Desmond, and we had a Blount Pride event that was coming up in our community that was going to have an “all-ages drag show.”
And we said, ‘Well, wait a minute, didn’t the General Assembly just make it clear that that is illegal in the state of Tennessee?’
And he came out and said, ‘It is. That law is on the books and will be enforced in Blount County. And if violations occur there will be law enforcement there to make arrests.’
Well, the Tennessee ACLU had to run into federal court at the last minute and get a TRO to prevent it.
But, your elected officials will respond to the wishes of the community as long as you make your wishes clear.
If you sit at home and you don’t pay attention and you don’t speak up, they’re going to assume everything is honky-dory.
But if you get loud and, you know, you can be polite about it, you can be civil, but you have to let them know that, hey, this is our community and we expect you to enforce the laws, they’re happy to oblige.
So, I think there’s plenty of conservative objectives that ordinary citizens can achieve with or without the assistance of a local Republican Party, because let’s face it, in Tennessee, in probably 90 of the 95 counties, you do not have a Republican Party that’s really actively engaged in promoting Republican principles – but that doesn’t mean that you’re defeated, and that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t persist and keep engaged in citizen advocacy.
Just as a citizen. That’s, that’s what citizenship is all about.
Michael Patrick Leahy: And the blog is misruleoflaw.com.
Read everything there, particularly your your column earlier this month, “The Original People’s President” about Andrew Jackson from Tennessee – a great article.
Again, you just keep knocking them out. You’re a retired attorney. You plan on staying retired, is that right?
Mark Pulliam: Well, my wife says I’m not retired enough.
But yeah, I no longer practice law, but it gives me lots of time to do other things that are, frankly, a lot more interesting.
Michael Patrick Leahy: And on that note, Mark Pulliam, a retired attorney, grassroots activist, and the proprietor of Misrule of Law on the web at misruleoflaw.com.
Mark, thank you so much for joining us. Come again, if you would, please.
Mark Pulliam: Thanks for having me, Michael.
Michael Patrick Leahy: All right. We’ll be back with more after this.
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Photo “Tre Hargett” by Tennessee Secretary of State.
