You Gotta Believe
Posted on February 9, 2010 at 4:20 pmSenator Corker still thinks financial reform is possible:
Corker, a freshman senator who’s emerged as a key member of the Senate Banking Committee, predicted that senators would be able to craft a bill despite a breakdown in talks late last week.
“My guess is that and the end of the day, we’re going to end up with a solid bill,” Corker said during an appearance on CNBC. “And if we end up with a solid bill, I’m plan on supporting it.”
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You Got A Better Idea
Posted on February 9, 2010 at 4:19 pmGov. Bredesen gets a bit frustrated with the Republican Party:
The proposal to lift the tax break on the first $15 of a cable bill is part of the Democratic governor’s plan to raise about $49 million in new revenue a year. But Republicans were quick to announce they wouldn’t go along with it.
Bredesen suggested in an interview with The Associated Press that opponents were too quick to oppose the measure.
“I say to someone who would say that, ‘Fine, what are you going to do to get $49 million?’” Bredesen said.
The governor said his proposal is an effort to make severe budget cuts less painful. He said he’s willing to be flexible.
“If somebody wants to put a little more pain here and a little less here, that’s fine with me,” he said. “But you’ve got to move beyond saying ‘I don’t like this,’ and into ‘I don’t like this, and here’s how we plan to fix it.”
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The Two Face of Lamar!
Posted on February 9, 2010 at 4:17 pmFrom Dee Newman:
Republican Senator Lamar Alexander from Tennessee said of the stimulus bill, “This is spending, not stimulus.” The Senator voted against the stimulus bill because “it was too much spending and too much debt for too little benefit to the economy.”
Recently, Senator Alexander in a letter to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack applying for stimulus money for a project for Tennessee said, “It is anticipated that the project will create over 200 jobs in the first year and at least another 40 new jobs in the following years.”
Senator Alexander obviously feels no shame in benefiting from legislation that he vehemently opposed. His rationale is “. . . the money will be spent, and because Tennessee taxpayers will end up footing part of the bill, they have a right to apply for the funds.”
SEE ALSO: Woods
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AP Writer: Tea Party Not Right-Wing Nut Jobs
Posted on February 9, 2010 at 3:36 pmFrom ABC:
Daddy’s Boy
Posted on February 9, 2010 at 3:22 pmJeff Woods on a withdrawn bill sponsored by Rep. Matthew Hill:
Behold House Bill 2683 sponsored by Hill this session. Our shrewd hero would transfer all commercial vehicle inspection and enforcement duties from the Safety Department to the Tennessee Regulatory Authority. Not coincidentally, we think, Hill’s father Kenneth is a new director of the TRA.
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President And House GOP Leader Clash In Private Meeting
Posted on February 9, 2010 at 3:17 pmFrom the Plumline:
According to aides familiar with the discussion, Boehner made the case that long-term concern over Dem policies — health care, cap and trade — was leading to uncertainty in the private sector, damaging job creation efforts. Boehner said the only way to get the economy moving again is to put these issues behind us.
That apparently irked the President, aides say, who accused Boehner of just wanting to kill all his initiatives. Boehner shot back that this was false, that Republicans are serious about bipartisan cooperation.
That prompted the President to push back again, aides say, arguing that the White House isn’t getting enough credit for the part of the stimulus that boosts federal funding for state Medicaid programs, arguing it has had a positive effect on the economy.
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Big Money In The Eighth
Posted on February 9, 2010 at 3:13 pmDr. Ron Kirkland, a Jackson physician challenging presumed GOP frontrunner Stephen Fincher in this summer’s primary, announced last week that he has raised more than $365,000 in his first month of campaigning.
As his campaign notes in the press release, Kirkland didn’t enter the race until January, so he won’t file his first fundraising report until after the first quarter ends. Given the response to Democratic State Sen. Roy Herron’s self-funding from GOP circles that have heavily promoted Fincher, it will be interesting to see how much Kirkland contributed to his own campaign and, if he did, what the reaction will be.
Equal Pay For Equal Work
Posted on February 9, 2010 at 2:46 pmThe Tennessee House Employee Affairs Subcommittee is set to discuss tomorrow.
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But Your Mad Men Will Stay The Same Price
Posted on February 9, 2010 at 2:34 pmJeff Woods reports:
Under Gov. Phil Bredesen’s recommended state budget, Tennessee will lay off 200 workers, including 28 foresters, unless the legislature agrees to raise $50 million in new taxes on cable television and on dividends from real estate investment trusts.
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You Can’t Catch The Wind
Posted on February 9, 2010 at 2:04 pmA warning to politicians attempting to capture the tea party movement:
The lesson: Just when politicians think they have the perfect pitch to appeal to Tea Partiers, someone comes along and moves the populist stakes on them. The people attending Tea Party events like it that way, because so far most of the politicians who are courting them keep following their lead. Together, the Tea Parties are reenergizing the wing of the Republican Party that is most skeptical of big government programs.
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What Sarah Palin Is
Posted on February 9, 2010 at 1:56 pmFrom Michael Pento:
Sarah Palin is missing the nucleus of what the Tea Party activists are all about. They are not looking for another John McCain or George Bush. While I sympathize with much of Palin’s platform, she misses the entire isolationist sentiment of the movement.
Tea party activists want a return to the constitution. While they want to fiercely defend our country, they also do not want to conduct any more pro-active wars that bankrupt the nation. They also value the life of our young men and women more than the profits of Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. There are many right leaning independents that will no longer support the use of military force to spread democracy and build nations across the globe.
Questions For The Tea Party Crowd
Posted on February 9, 2010 at 1:01 pm1. Will Tea Party seniors support reductions in Social Security and Medicare benefits and increases to the retirement age?
2. Will Tea Party farmers support elimination of farm and ethanol subsidies?
3. Will Tea Party members from Long Beach, Calif., support canceling the C-17 aircraft program?
4. Will Tea Party members from the Space Coast and Houston support cutbacks to the manned space program?
If the answer is yes, then the movement serves a purpose. Otherwise, it does not.
Yellow Dog Democrat, Indeed
Posted on February 9, 2010 at 1:00 pmHarold Ford Jr. is trying to unload his New York Apartment.
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Interesting Priorities You Got There
Posted on February 9, 2010 at 12:54 pmVia Mary Mancini:
So the same folks who want to require a birth certificate to register to vote also want to remove the birth certificate requirement to apply for or renew a handgun carry permit.
New Bills From ‘Guns In Bars’ Sponsor
Posted on February 9, 2010 at 12:48 pmKen Whitehouse with the news:
A pair of bills introduced in the Tennessee General Assembly could literally shut down historic bars like Tootsie’s in Nashville and most every bar on Beale Street in Memphis. The shots fired to stop the shot glasses come from none other than one of the main sponsors of last year’s controversial “guns in restaurants” legislation.
The Tea Party Movement’s Failure
Posted on February 9, 2010 at 12:27 pmThe Baltimore Sun editorializes:
Tea partiers should have at least flinched when Mr. Tancredo started out by attacking President Barack Obama by invoking his middle name of Hussein – that shopworn technique of not-so-subtly suggesting some nefarious Iraqi connection. Or perhaps when he blustered that “people who could not even spell the word or say it in English put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House.”
But when the Republican suggested that Mr. Obama won because the nation lacks a civics and literacy test for voters, the crowd should have been stunned and alarmed. Surely, anyone familiar with this country’s civil rights history should have been. For decades, such tests had one purpose: to prevent blacks from voting.
And to make reference to them in the context of the country’s first African-American president? That’s not some slip of the tongue or a moment of political incorrectness. That’s the stuff of Klan rallies.
Blackburn Wants To Privatize Social Security
Posted on February 9, 2010 at 12:25 pmWell, she never uses the word “privatize” — but that’s the jist of it:
Blackburn never used the word “privatize.” But her idea to change the entitlement programs so people have separate accounts with their money is privatization.
“We need to make sure that individuals get the money out that they have placed in,” she said. “This is one of the reasons we have had the discussion over and over for our younger earners of having accounts that have their Social Security number and their information on it, so you have that personal account.”
SEE ALSO: Jeff Woods
He Told But They’re Taking Him Back Anyway
Posted on February 9, 2010 at 12:10 pmA gay rights advocate gets called back to active duty.
The Place Where The Wave Finally Broke — And Rolled Back
Posted on February 9, 2010 at 11:56 amThe tea party movement loses ground:
The poll found that 36% of voters would support a Democratic candidate on a generic ballot, 25% would back the Republican and 17% would go for the Tea Party pick. Twenty-three percent of respondents are undecided.
In early December, the same poll showed the Tea Party in second place and the GOP in third. Unchanged between the polls, according to Rasmussen, is that 41% of voters have a favorable view of the conservative movement.
State Lawmakers Try And Make It Harder To Register To Vote
Posted on February 9, 2010 at 11:52 amMary Mancini doesn’t like it.
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