across the country some experts now warn the perfect storm of troublesis putting the country s national security at risk new inflation numbers this morning were better than expected what it says about where the economy is headed and what it means for your wallet. and right now, toxic smoke is filling the skies over eastern indiana, as a recycling plant burns and thousands are forced to flee how long could that fire keep burning. our nbc news reporters are following all of the latest developments to that breaking news first in eastern indiana, a massive warehouse fire is forcing families to leave their homes, schools are closed maggie vespa is in richmond, iowa the state fire marshal says the smoke is definitely toxic. obviously you re wearing your mask what is the situation, what is the major concern there right now? reporter: of course the biggest concern is basically what could be lingering in the air right now. i want to be clear, we re wearing a mask out of an over
more law enforcement officers in schools and instead proposed more funding for mental health professionals. now, as you know, this is not the first time that tennessee republicans moved to punish representative jones. back in april, they voted to expel him, along with democratic representative justin jay pearson for calling for gun reform on the floor right after a shooting. now just this afternoon, the house republicans adjourned the special session, ending their journey to pass any gun legislation laws at all, things that are highly supported by the population in tennessee. joining our conversation, the distinguished university professor of african american and diaspora studies at vanderbilt university in nashville and author of entertaining race: performing blackness in america. welcome to you professor dyson. and errin haines is back with us. thank you for staying, errin. professor, i m fascinated. i ve always said i made it somehow into my 50s without ever knowing much about the
factors pretty prominently into that, being the 36th state to ratify the 19th amendment. but not over the objections of folks who did not want black people, specifically black women getting their access to the franchise in 19 in the early 20th century. so you have justin pearson continuing to call for gun reform five months after this nashville shooting. justin jones trying to do the same. they were ejected, you know, get elected, returned to that state house, and yet aturn to apparently business as usual. i wonder what happened to the decorum that that the house speaker was so prioritizing? because once again you see with cameras rolling in the state house this altercation between representative pearson and the house speaker. and to professor dyson s point, it seems like not much actual governing happened this week. so taxpayers and voters,
including those who were reinstated, representatives pearson and jones to go and down their jobs at that state house are probably wondering, it certainly didn t look like they got their money s worth. this week the public was kept out of the special session. law enforcement was largely let in. this is really not what we should expect from democracy to look like in 2023. professor, this is an interesting point. part of the reason that the municipalities that justin pearson and justin jones were able to reinstate them because we have an understanding in democracy that people have a right to be represented. if you sort of have their seats empty, putting the race question, acai, the overwhelming number of tennesseeans and americans understand we have a gun problem in this country. they don t want to give up their guns, but they do understand whether it s red flag laws or better background checks or safer storage, there is a real discussion to be had that the legislators of tennessee, the
the legitimacy of what they re saying. you can separate it from race to be certain. when you add race on to it, it becomes even more exacerbated. but the point is that these republicans are refusing to have any sense of conversation about the possibility that the second amendment is not the second commandment, and god didn t say thou shalt have an ak-47. you know, errin, as much as i was saying, the go of you are such experts at this, and you understand the south and you understand tennessee. i didn t really know much about the tennessee legislature. i also didn t know justin jones and justin pearson, and people like them across the country who got shot into prominence because of what happened. one actually looks, all right, i vote for somebody who is ready to get out of their jobs. it s a civil rights kind of thing, right? these guys are ready to get thrown out of their legislatures. they re ready to braechl decorum in the defense of lies.