You Think?
Posted on April 30, 2008 at 6:48 pmCara Kumari makes a funny after receiving the news that the state will be making layoffs to make budget:
Yesterday, my story talked about some of the things that could be on the chopping block for next year. It looks like those 2 percent employee pay raises are out. We won’t know any of the specifics to anything until the governor lays out his revised budget on May 12. I know lawmakers were hoping to get out by the end of next week, working through the weekend if necessary. But it looks like they’ll be staying a little longer.
SEE ALSO:
The City Paper
The AP
WPLN (ii)
Dru’s Vues
Jackson Day: It’s Coming
Posted on at 6:31 pmVia the Munday Message:
The Tennessee Democratic Party’s annual Jackson Day celebration will take place Saturday, May 31 at 6 p.m. in Nashville. The event will be held at The Wildhorse Saloon and will feature live entertainment, dinner, an address by our Governor Phil Bredesen, along with other special guests.
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Matt Kisber’s Pipeline
Posted on at 5:56 pmJohn Rodgers thinks the Bredesen administration may have given up some of the goods on a big new company coming to the area:
In a speech to the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce today, Gov. Phil Bredesen said ECD Commissioner Matt Kisber’s “pipeline” is full of companies looking to move to Tennessee, “including some really, really big ones.”
Hmm. Watch out for the incentives included in the so-called “technical corrections bill” that’s up for debate.
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Fred To Accompany McCain At Wake Forrest
Posted on at 5:21 pmFrom the Winston Salem Journal:
Organizers say that McCain will speak about 10 a.m. at Wait Chapel. The doors will open at 8 a.m. for the talk, which is free and open to the public.
With McCain will be Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., and former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee. U.S. Solicitor General Ted Olson will also be present.
Wake Forest President Nathan O. Hatch extended an invitation in 2007 to all presidential candidates. On April 18, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., spoke at Wait Chapel.
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The House Of Davis
Posted on at 5:17 pmCongressman Lincoln Davis discusses the Congressional role in the Housing crisis with a Chattanooga television news station.
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Bill Frist To Give Blanton State House Run A Bump
Posted on at 4:31 pmRepublican State Committeewoman Barbara Blanton kicks off her campaign to unseat 62nd District state Rep. Curt Cobb in the pages of the Shelbyville Times-Gazette:
“People I talk to say we need jobs; people want to work,” Blanton said. “Legislators do not create jobs, however, they work to create a business friendly environment. If you have a good education system and good roads you’re going to have jobs.
As to immigration, Blanton said, “Cobb voted against requiring all driver’s license tests to be conducted only in the English language. I will vote for this requirement. When Ted was in the Navy, we lived in Puerto Rico for three years and we had to take the test in Spanish.
“Cobb voted against requiring photo ID’s to register to vote, and he voted against requiring photo ID’s to vote. I believe everyone needs a photo ID to register and to vote.
“There are numerous bills that Cobb and I disagree on, and I will be pointing those out during the campaign.”
A campaign kick-off reception for the candidate will be held Saturday at the home of her daughter and son-in-law, Dianne and Michael Watson. Former U.S. Sen. Bill Frist will be a special guest at the event.
The True Energy Enemy: Our Democracy
Posted on at 4:22 pmJoe Powell points the finger at an electorate without a time horizon and blames it for our current energy crisis:
As much as the leadership in Washington is to blame for abandoning real solutions over the last 30 years, we have to blame ourselves too - for letting them slide and for indulging ourselves even more and for increasing our reliance on the commercial structures which have expanded our needs for energy.
Blowing Up An Issue
Posted on at 4:09 pmJeff Woods investigates the unfortunate lapse in the legislature on the subject of mountaintop mining:
With a coal company essentially promising to mine by blowing off the tops of Tennessee mountains, lawmakers inexplicably refused to act and all but guaranteed great swaths of ecologically important woodlands will be laid to waste.
The National Coal Corp. threatened to shut down in Tennessee if mountaintop mining were banned. So to save 234 jobs, the sum total of the company’s workforce, lawmakers decided to sacrifice the natural beauty that underpins a gazillion-dollar tourism industry.
It’s all the more baffling because the legislature, at the urging of Gov. Phil Bredesen, has invested more than $100 million to acquire and protect the land that’s now in the coal company’s crosshairs. It’s mostly in the 74,000-acre Sundquist Wildlife Management Area in the northern Cumberland Plateau. The state bought surface and timber rights, but mineral rights belong to National Coal.
Know Your Enemy
Posted on at 4:07 pmDaniel McCarthy sees some promise in a New Republic blogger’s suggestion to young leftists that they study the history of conservatism:
Ironically enough, if liberals take up YoungSmith’s challenge, they might quickly find themselves knowing more about the Right than the typical movement conservative does. And who knows? If they approach the history with an open mind — not what YoungSmith recommends, to be sure — they might come not only to understand the difference between conservatism and the conservative movement but to find something attractive in the former.
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The Audacity Of Topography
Posted on at 4:02 pmMatt C at Race42008 breaks down the changing electoral map that an Obama versus McCain match up would give us:
Clearly, Obama’s strength lies in his ability to turn flyover and western states bluer and running stronger than Kerry in the South, while at the same time taking the coveted states of MN, WI, OR, and WA further out of reach of the GOP. Obama’s strength in the typically dark red “Republican L” is stark.
Likewise, McCain’s advantage lies in his strength in typically blue Northeastern states and making MI and CA closer, while running stronger in the southwest than did Bush - and moving the trifecta of OH, PA, and FL further out of Dem reach.
By the time the dust settles in this contest, we may not recognize the electoral map.
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The Best And The Worst
Posted on at 3:16 pmBusinessTN lets you know which state legislators have been naughty and nice to the Tennessee business community.
SEE ALSO: Huddle House
Proud Son Of The Fighting First District
Posted on at 2:49 pmRob Huddleston lets us know who he is:
I’m from the 1st District of the Great State of Tennessee, where people support candidates that believe what they believe. We sat with Jimmy Quillen and Bill Jenkins at church socials and pancake breakfasts, talking about what we could do to make this world a better place through the vehicles of limited government, lower taxes, religious and civil liberties, protection of the right to bear arms, and a strong military to defend our borders.
The bond we felt has to do with belief and ideology, not party loyalty. This is more of an Appalachian trait, it seems, than a Tennessean one or a Southern one. I suppose that one could expand voting for a common ideology instead of with party affiliation to many parts of the South, and Zell Miller of Georgia would be an example of this phenomenon. In fact, those Republicans who cheered Zell’s loyalty to his ideology at the expense of his party and then deride those of us who do the same thing as the party of McCain drifts Left are nothing more than hypocrites and opportunists.
I am not supporting John McCain. I will not vote for John McCain. I have not been shy about those statements.
Justice Janice Holder, First Female Tennessee Supreme Court Chief
Posted on at 2:46 pmR. Neal points to the news that before the retirement of Tennessee Chief Justice William Barker made the paper his colleagues on the bench decided that the next Chief would be Justice Janice Holder.
SEE ALSO: Music City Bloggers
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Mending The White Pickett Fence
Posted on at 2:06 pmBarack Obama will appear along with his wife in an appearance some are comparing to the Clintons’ post-Gennifer Flowers 60 Minutes interview:
Now that Barack Obama has distanced himself publicly, if painfully, from the pastor who married him and his wife and baptized their children, he is getting close to the wife in a national television appearance.
NBC’s Meredith Vieira will sit down with Barack and Michelle Obama today in Indianapolis for an interview that will air on the “Today” show Thursday. A segment of the talk will air on NBC’s “Nightly News” and on MSNBC this evening.
All That Debt, And Soon, Nothing To Even Show For It
Posted on at 2:01 pmAt an increasing pace, Americans are selling off their financed consumer goods at internet sites like Ebay and Craigslist in order to make ends meet now that home equity lines have run dry and credit cards are maxed to the max:
Economists say it is difficult to compare the selling trend with other tough times because the Internet, only in wide use since the mid-1990s, has made it much easier to unload goods than, say, at pawn shops.
But clearly, cash-strapped people are selling their belongings at bargain prices, with a flood of listings for secondhand cars, clothing and furniture hitting the market in recent months, particularly since January.
Earlier this decade, people tapped their inflated home equity and credit cards to fuel a buying binge. Now, slumping home values and a credit crisis have sapped sources of cash.
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A Question Of Ethics
Posted on at 1:36 pmKen Whitehouse reports on the deep cleavage developing between the Tennessee Ethics Commission and the legislators and lobbyists whose ethical behavior the Commission is tasked with overseeing.
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Even if Close, She Will Be Too Far Away
Posted on at 1:32 pmLawrence Alexander reminds that even if Hillary Clinton is able to get herself to place where she can make a plausible case to the superdelegates to choose her, she will still have one man standing in her way:
The Clintons cannot get back to the White House and return to power without first winning the Democratic nomination, and they can no longer do that without the support of the great majority of the super delegates who have yet to commit to either side. No one wants this to go on to the convention; everyone wants to avoid the political equivalent of civil war. The only Democrat with the moral authority to stop it by telling the others how they ought to proceed is Al Gore, which means it is now in his power either to help Hillary Clinton to the nomination or to crush her ambition once and for all. It is not difficult to anticipate what the former vice-president is likely to do, not if we remember that it is not necessary to have studied Machiavelli, or even to have read him, to know how to be Machiavellian.
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The Honorable Phil Governor To Explain Himself During Joint Session
Posted on at 1:28 pmFrom the AP:
Gov. Phil Bredesen has asked lawmakers to convene in a joint session to hear his explanation of budget cuts that have become necessary due to lower than expected revenue.
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