August 31, 2005

The Right Men in the Right Job At the Right Time

It's just a thought but, now that Hurricane Katrina has temporarily knocked out a tenth of our nation's oil refining capacity and a third of our domestic oil production, we're rather fortunate to have a president and a vice president who understand the oil bidness.

By releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and temporarily waiving environmental regulations that force refiners to formulate a zillion different kinds of gasoline, the Bush administration has taken two major steps to offset Katrina's negative impact on energy supply, production and prices.

Photo: Kroger gas station, Columbia Ave., Franklin, Tennessee, 8:30 p.m, Wednesday night. The Market Express station down the road had gas, but not the cheapest regular blend. The next station down the road, a Shell, had plenty of everything.

Confirmed: Bredesen Friend Lobbied for Tripling of TennCare Contract for Poorly-Performing Contractor

Tennessee's Commissioner of Finance & Administration has confirmed that a powerful lobbyist who is a friend of Gov. Phil Bredesen played a role in helping a company get a huge contract expansion with TennCare despite a record of poor performance.

The details are in an excellent story by John Spragens in this week's Nashville Scene. The story recaps information I brought to you in two posts on July 7 and July 8. An excerpt follows...

Historically, First Health’s poor performance has caused some expensive headaches for TennCare officials. Citing a failure to live up to its contract, the state withheld several payments early in First Health’s tenure as pharmacy benefits manager, a relationship that began in January 2004. In December 2004, the company mistakenly shipped thousands of pounds of unopened, returned patient mail to TennCare’s offices, setting off a flurry of exasperated emails that eventually wound up as court evidence. The next month, state officials complained that First Health was continuing to pay insurance benefits for dead people—after repeated notices from the state that they were dead. "[First Health’s] failure to [stop paying claims] has cost the state money, this is unacceptable," wrote Darin Gordon, TennCare’s chief financial officer, in an email to a colleague that was introduced at trial. TennCare officials had such a hard time dealing with the contractor, according to the court testimony of chief medical officer Wendy Long, that they considered terminating its then-$15 million contract.

But instead, they moved to triple it. In March 2005, TennCare Deputy Commissioner J.D. Hickey said First Health was having its contract expanded to a maximum of $45 million—which was later reduced to $38 million—because even though it hadn’t won any friends in Tennessee, it was performing well in other states.

... As it turns out, First Health has plenty of friends in Tennessee: the company was recently purchased by Coventry Health Care Inc., the health care outfit founded in the 1980s by Phil Bredesen himself. Longtime Bredesen friend Dick Lodge lobbies for First Health on Tennessee’s Capitol Hill. Nashville attorney Byron Trauger, another friend of the governor, served as Coventry’s chairman in the mid-1990s. In a March 2005 Tennessean article, both denied helping First Health get the $30 million contract boost, and at the time the governor, through a spokeswoman, said he had no role in the process.

Long, TennCare’s medical chief, testified in federal court that she was aware that First Health had a lobbyist by the name of Dick Lodge; Goetz testified that Lodge had "advocated with the administration on behalf of First Health." But in a recent interview with the Scene, Goetz said that Lodge played only a small role in securing the contract amendment. "That was all done directly with First Health," he said. "Dick had very little involvement in that, almost none."

Let's recap: A TennCare contractor performed so badly that it cost taxpayers millions and the head of TennCare wanted to cancel the contract. Somehow, after a friend of the governor's lobbies the adminstration, the contract is nearly tripled in value.

And the governor has a task force (of mostly political insiders) looking at proposals for ethics reform for the legislature.

Your tax dollars at work.

Tennessean Notes Story After Blogger Breaks It First

Bob Krumm's dogged blogging about it has apparently made The Tennessean take notice and report the hypocrisy of several organizations that supported the income tax a few years ago and said it was needed to reduce the "unfair" sales tax are not opposing Nashville's proposed half-cent sales tax increase. Hypocrites. Rightly, The Tennessean gives Krumm credit for spotting it first.

Tennessean Notes Story After Blogger Breaks It First

Bob Krumm's dogged blogging about it forced The Tennessean to take notice and report the hypocrisy of several organizations that supported the income tax a few years ago and said it was needed to reduce the "unfair" sales tax are opposing Nashville's proposed half-cent sales tax increase. Rightly, The Tennessean gives Krumm credit.

August 30, 2005

I Want One

An iPod cellphone from Apple and Cingular? Cool. And if it allows the user to digitally record their own phone conversations as Mp3 files, I'll be buying one very, very soon.

Apocalypse Only Delayed

Yesterday it appeared as if Hurricane Katrina had shifted just enough to the east to spare New Orleans the long-feared nightmare scenario of a city under water. Today, it appears the nightmare was only delayed a day. The water is rising - as much as 80 percent of the city is now flooded, in some places 20 feet deep, and reports say some levees holding back Lake Ponchartrain have breached. Meanwhile, the devastation and loss of life from Katrina is widespread across much of the Gulf Coast.

Reports here, here, here, and here. And here's the PDF of the cover of today's New Orleans Times Picayune.

Pray for the people of New Orleans, Biloxi and the rest of the Gulf Coast. Hundreds of thousands of them have just had their world completely and catastophically transformed. They will rebuild and it will be better before - Americans always do it that way - but it will take years.

More from Lunch With Kurita: Working for a Living

Sharon Cobb has emailed, but not yet posted, a partial transcript up of yesterday's bloggers' lunch with state senator and U.S. Senate candidate Rosalind Kurita. Parts of it seem more like a paraphrase to me, but this part, where Kurita is asked to draw the biggest distinction between herself and rival candidate Harold Ford Jr., seems accurate:

KURITA: I know what it means to work hard for a living. I have worked for everything I have. I’m married. I have three children. I know what it means to save money for college. I know what it means to punch a time clock. I’ve worked the night shift, I’ve worked a swing shift, I know how to do a days’ work, I’m a nurse, I have really had to take responsibility for my actions. When you take care of people who have their lives in your hands, that’s accountability. Those are real life experiences, and that's what people from Tennessee expect from their United States Senator.

Speaking of Ford, Bob Krumm, one of eight bloggers who had lunch with Kurita yesterday, says Ford "is in a real race," and Kurita benefits from being the "Not Ford" on the Democratic ballot. He comments on Kurita's "working for a living" jab at Ford here.

While he says Kurita earned his respect, he also expresses disappointment that "she didn't take the opportunity to denounce her indicted Democratic fellow Senators like Republicans in the House denounced Rep. Chris Newton."

Also following up on yesterday's lunch with Kurita: Josh Tinley.

Hargett Update

This doesn't look good for Tre Hargett - but it doesn't look as bad as the overraught headline and the lead. Bottom line: The bill that negatively impacted Pfizer passed the full House 93-0 and Hargett did not vote against it there or in committee. The changes he argued for in committee were changes that legislators of both parties supported. And as I reported here on August 20, the chairman of two key committees through which the legislation passed have no recollection of Hargett speaking against the legislation in committee or to them privately.

The legislation in question, incidentally, benefitted pharmacists at the expense of big drugmakers like Pfizer. The prime House sponsor for the legislation, which was was backed by the state association of pharmacists, was state Rep. David Shepard.

He's a pharmacist - and the most ethically compromised person involved in pushing that specific piece of legislation. Oddly, the news coverage of Hargett's role continues to ignore Shepard's.

August 29, 2005

Kurita: Former Lawmakers Should Be Banned from Lobbying Forever

State Sen. Rosalind Kurita, a candidate for the Democratic Party nomination for the U.S. Senate from Tennessee, said lawmakers at the state and federal level should be forbidden permanently from becoming lobbyists after they leave office, and pledged to propose such legislation in the U.S. Senate if she's elected.

Kurita also said two sitting state senators who have been indicted for allegedly accepting bribes should resign "if they're guilty," and announced her proposals for sweeping ethics reforms at the national level.

She announced her proposals at the first Nashville-area political bloggers' lunch, which organizers plan as a monthly event for Nashville-area political bloggers to meet with elected officials and candidates and discuss issues in an informal and nonpartisan way.

Bloggers attending the first lunch, held at Nashville's Midtown Café, were myself, Mark Rose, Bob Krumm, Roger Abramson, Sharon Cobb, Josh Tinley, Joey Hood, Blake Wylie, and Adam Groves. The group included more conservative/Republican bloggers than liberal/Democratic, but three other bloggers - one conservative and two liberals - who had planned to attend had to cancel for various reasons.

Kurita's proposals for federal-level ethics reforms include: ending the revolving door with a ban on former members of Congress lobbying Congress, making Congressional districts fair by creating an independent commission to guide redistricting "so average citizens have a fair shot at winning a seat in the government," ending lobbyist-funded trips for lawmakers, requiring more frequent and more detailed reports of lobbyists' expenses because "it should be easy for the public to find out what Member of Congress was lobbied, what legislation was discussed, and how much was spent."

Kurita also proposes requiring lobbyists to report money spent on "grassroots" efforts to influence legislation (such as advertisements urging people to "call Congressman so-and-so and tell them to vote no" on a specific bill – and "real penalties" for lobbyists who file late or inaccurate reports or break the ethics laws.

Kurita said she believes state lawmakers also should be permanently banned from becoming lobbyists, calling the proposed one-year "cooling off" period "not realistic" and ineffective because even after a lawmaker has been out of office for a year, "it's about relationships and your peers are still your peers."

With today's headline out of the state Capital in Nashville being the announcement by indicted state Rep. Chris Newton that he will resign effective Nov. 1, Kurita was asked if she though the two sitting state senators facing similar indictments – Democrat Ward Crutchfield and Democrat Kathryn Bowers – should also resign.

"My intuition is to say yes," Kurita said. "However, in this country we are innocent until proven guilty" Saying that only Crutchfield and Bowers "know in their heart if they're innocent or guilty," Kurita says, "If they're guilty they should resign."

Kurita's ethics push isn't new - long before Operation Tennessee Waltz, Kurita sponsored and passed legislation putting the state's Registry of Election Finance data online. Previously, a member of the media or public could only get information about a state elected official's campaign donations by visiting the Registry office in person and signing a form – and the elected official was notified who had asked to look at their records. Kurita called that "intimidating," and said such information should be accessible to everyone anonymously, as it now is online.

I'll have more to add to this post later today...

MORE:
Some other issues Kurita discussed with the bloggers included energy policy, the war in Iraq, judicial nominations, and U.S. Rep. Harold Ford Jr., her rival for the Democratic nomination, derisively calling members of the American military serving in Iraq "oil cops."

Kurita, whose state senate district includes a portion of Fort Campbell, clearly respects the military and the job they're doing in Iraq and she clearly thinks the war is going better than the mainstream press portrays it, a reasonable view given that she often speaks with members of the military who have served in Iraq and who tell her about far more than just the latest car bombing that dominates mainstream press coverage.

On the other hand, she believes the war is driven by America's need for Middle East oil, stating the long-term view that "the way we get out of Iraq is we have our own energy sources."

She criticized the big energy bill recently passed by Congress that would give big subsidies to big energy companies, and called instead for tax incentives or other subsidies for developing alternatives such as biodiesel, geothermal, solar and wind power. She declared support for "every single thing" that would help the nation become independent of Middle East oil - but, immediately afterward, when I asked if that included more domestic drilling for oil off the coast of the United States or in the tiny corner of the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge set aside decades ago for future oil exploration, Kurita said no.

Lowering speed limits would save more oil than drilling in Alaska would produce, she claimed, but wouldn't go as far as declaring support for Congressional action to lower speed limits.

So when Kurita said we should do "every single thing" to become energy independent, she didn't really mean every single thing, just everything on the liberal side of the agenda.

But if Kurita is right that we won't get our troops home from Iraq and out of harm's way until we're energy independent, then how is it moral or right to not do something - drilling for oil in Alaska and off our own coasts - that would speed that process along?

On the war in Iraq, Kurita avoided the simplistic liberal description of how President Bush lead us into war as Bush "lied" about weapons of mass destruction.

I didn't write all of this quote down, but to the best of my recollection is she said this: "I'm not going to bash the president We made decisions. We have hindsight now and that colors things. We had one set of information that we believed was true then and we have another set of information now that we believe is true."

Kurita says that, given the information available back before the invasion, if she had been in the U.S. Senate, "I would have supported" the war resolution.

I asked Sen. Kurita what she thought of Ford calling our troops "oil cops," even allowing for it to be his shorthand way of saying we wouldn't need to be in Iraq if it wasn't for our dependency on imported oil.

"It doesn't feel right," she said. She said more than that, but that sums it up pretty well. (Meaning: That's the only part that I wrote down - when Sharon Cobb posts a transcript of the discussion, I might add more!)

Incidentally, I think Kurita - and Ford - are wrong that we wouldn't need to be in Iraq if we didn't need Middle East oil. If five years ago someone had invented a way to make every American car and truck run on grass clippings, and we had converted the entire fleet of vehicles to grass clippings and could get all the grass clippings we needed each week from the American suburbs each Saturday morning, an Iraq headed by a madman who had used weapons of mass destruction, had links to international Islamist terrorism, and had billions of dollars of oil revenue would still have represented a potential threat in the post-9/11 world.

Even if we didn't need a drop of Middle Eastern oil, the rest of the world does, and Saddam would still have been in position to take his billions of dollars of oil revenue and restart his WMD programs. With his known and suspected links to Islamist terror groups and even to al Qaeda, an oil-enriched madman developing WMD is a threat even to an American that needed none of his oil.

Also, it's a bit wrongheaded to say we must do "every single thing" we can to become independent of imported oil, but then categorically refuse to allow drilling in a tiny fragment of our own country that the Carter administration and Congress set aside for just that very purpose.

Oil from the ANWR is predicted to be equal to what we'll get from Saudi Arabia for the next 30 years - and similar predictions of how much oil was under the North Slope turned out to be very low. And Americans would get the jobs that would come with developing ANWR oil.

I didn't press Kurita for her views on increased drilling off the American coast, in places like Florida, and I won't presume to guess here - though if her campaign wishes to clarify, I'll certainly bring that information to you.

On judicial nominations, Kurita seemed to agree that nominees should get an up-or-down vote, and said she believes that vote should come after the Senate, in its "advise and consent" role, has gathered "all the information."

"I think for myself," she said. "We do no one a service if we blindly vote the way someone tells us to vote."

Kurita also dropped this little bit of information: Originally from Midland, Texas., she went to high school with current First Lady Laura Bush.

Other bloggers report in...
Blake Wylie: Lunch with Kurita
Sharon Cobb promises a wrap-up soon.
Mark Rose of Right Minded has a very good wrap-up that sums up all the issues discussed, even some I skipped in my overview. He also has a good photo of the event.
Joey Hood promises his summary and thoughts tomorrow.
No word yet from Josh Tinley, Bob Krumm or Roger Abramson.
Adam Groves discusses what Kurita might do if she loses the primary - a question he notes that Kurita answered "with perhaps the only blatant non-answer of the soiree."

And so, that's it. The first Nashville Area Political Bloggers Lunch is in the history books, having generated some Genuine Grade-A USDA Choice Breaking News and good insight into a serious candidate's serious policy proposals and positions.

Next time you see the mainstream media parachute into the early months of the Senate campaign to report on fundraising and polls rather than issues, remember that.

The next candidate on the bloggers' grill is likely to be former U.S. Rep. Ed Bryant, who is running for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate. He and his campaign staff has committed to having him attend, though the lunch - likely in late September - has not yet been scheduled. If you're a Nashville-area or Tennessee political blogger interested in landing one of the limited invites, please email me at bill-at-billhobbs.com.

We're striving for partisan balance, so bleeding heart commie libs and neocon wingnuts are equally encouraged to participate.

UPDATE: In a related development, Harold Ford Jr. spent the day focused on the serious issues.

August 28, 2005

Is Bredesen Unconcerned About Private Property Rights Post-Kelo?

In the wake of the Supreme Court's Kelo decision that greatly undermined private property rights in America, Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt created the Missouri Task Force on Eminent Domain to evaluate the state's eminent domain laws and making initial recommendations regarding suggested changes and improvements to the law - and the task force put up a website so the public could be involved in the task force's work. Government Technology magazine reports that the new site "allows for individuals to electronically submit testimony, provide recommendations and suggestions, and stay up to date on task force activities (and) also includes details about upcoming meetings."

In Tennessee, Gov. Phil Bredesen has created no such task force, nor issued any public statements criticizing the Kelo decision - which enables government to take private property for any reason it chooses, even solely to increase government tax revenues. A Google News search finds no news stories in which Bredesen even comments on Kelo, he hasn't written a word about it (or much of anything else for that matter) on his blog, and Bredesen has ignored requests for answers about his position on Kelo, as I reported here and here. In fact, Kelo is not mentioned even once anywhere on the entire state of Tennessee official website.

To be fair, Bredesen has been occupied with slashing sick people from the TennCare rolls and with the legislative ethics crisis and he has created a task force on legislative ethics. That task force has not created a website to solicit public input.

In a somewhat related bit of news, Knoxville-based Citizens for Home Rule has video of Knoxville City Council member Barbara Pelot admitting the city annexes property for the purpose of increasing city tax revenue, a violation of state law. Tennessee really needs a statewide version of Citizens for Home Rule. It also needs a governor that cares about private property rights.

Cornwall in the News

Jeff Cornwall, whose daily weblog The Entrepreneurial Mind is a daily must-read for me, is the subject of an "Executive Q&A" in today's Tennessean business section. The paper rarely interviews academics for that feature - the last one before this was the new dean of the Owen Business School at Vanderbilt. Cornwall's blog was recently named one of the best small business-related blogs on the web by Forbes.com, and the Q&A gives a good picture of the insight and experience that makes Cornwall's blog so good.

August 27, 2005

When Sickos Attack

This editorial in the Clarksville Leaf Chronicle is harsh, but not nearly as harsh as Fred Phelps and his Godless little band of hate-filled followers deserve.

Lobbyist Watch

Lobbyist Watch: The Tennessean reports that Curtis Person is the new director of legislative affairs for Comcast Cable of Tennessee. In other words, he's their lobbyist. The Tennessean didn't mention it but I will: Person's father is a state senator from Memphis. Sen. Person has in the past pushed legislation sought by the cable television industry. He also is a member of the Senate Ethics Committee.

In related news, state Rep. Gary Moore, a Democrat from the Nashville suburb of Joelton, announced yesterday that he will give up his post as president of the Tennessee Professional Fire Fighters Association in October after receiving word that he was probably violating state law by serving in the post. The Nashville City Paper reports:

Last legislative session, the General Assembly approved an ethics bill that made it unlawful for a legislator to be paid for consulting services that involve attempts to influence legislation or state contracts. Moore is also a Metro Nashville firefighter. He made his decision to retire after receiving Attorney General Paul Summers’ opinion that he was likely violating state law through his role.

That opinion could have far-reaching effects on other legislators serving in similar consulting positions, Moore said, including Rep. Gary Odom (D-Nashville), the executive director of the Tennessee Optometrics Association. Odom has said he does not believe that the law affects him.

Odom is a member of the House Health and Human Resources Committee and the Joint Tenncare Oversight Committee, two committees that oversee healthcare policy.

Meanwhile, the pack of lobbyists in the Tennessee legislature are objecting loudly to a much-needed ethics reform that is already in place in 30 other states. It will be interesting to see where Sen. Person stands on that issue.

I've said several times that whatever ethics reform proposals the lobbyists object to the loudest should be the first reforms that the people demand the legislature passes.

August 26, 2005

Kurita Launches More Blog Ads

On the same day that U.S. Rep. Harold Ford lashed out at "right wing attack blogs" after they discussed his recent gaffe involving a letter that seemed to encourage the parole board to set a murderer free, his rival for the Democratic nomination to replace Bill Frist in the U.S. Senate showed again that she is far more savvy about the blogosphere than he is.

State Sen. Rosalind Kurita launched a second wave of Internet ads Thursday, placing them both in Tennessee and nationally. The ads focus on Tennessee's historic role in the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which granted
women the right to vote, and urges voters to help make her the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate from Tennessee.

Kurita's current ads can be seen at such national websites as www.talkingpointsmemo.com and www.rawstory.com as well as on Tennessee newspaper websites.

Kurita has been recognized as the first Tennessee candidate to advertise nationally on the Internet. Campaign officials say the ads resulted in campaign contributions from 22 states.

On Monday, Kurita will become the first Tennessee candidate to grant an interview to bloggers by attending the first monthly Nashville Area Political Bloggers Lunch, an invitation-only on-the-record event involving a bi-partisan group of bloggers.

Former U.S. Rep. Ed Bryant, a candidate for the Republican nomination to replace Frist in the Senate, will be the guest on the grill at the September Bloggers Lunch. If you would like to be invited, please drop me an email at bill-at-billhobbs.com.

CARR "among the most powerful tools not yet discovered by the Blogosphere"

Mark Tapscott says a new data analysis by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University which discovered the federal government significantly increased its prosecution of illegal aliens last year shows the value of computer-aided research and reporting skills of the kind that the Media Bloggers Association and the Heritage Foundation are providing to bloggers via a series of CARR Boot Camp training sessions.

"The TRAC study that found the 345% increase in federal prosecutions in South Texas of illegal aliens could be done by anybody with basic spreadsheet skills, which is what we teach at the CARR boot camps," Tapscott said. "There is an incredible amount of publicly available data out there and the more bloggers there are who know how to do statistical analyses the stronger will be the Blogosphere's ability to get beyond the spin to the real news."

On his blog, Tapscott comments that...

The TRAC study is based on data that is publicly available from the Department of Homeland Security (usually via a Freedom of Information Act request) and the analysis required to determine basic trends such as the increase in prosecutions is easily done with elementary spreadsheet skills and Microsoft Excel.

The TRAC project is an example of Computer-Assisted Research and Reporting, which is among the most powerful tools not yet discovered by the Blogosphere.

More details about the TRAC study, and the CARR Boot Camp, here. Tapscott and I are both members of the board of the Media Bloggers Association, a co-sponsor of the CARR Boot Camps.

August 25, 2005

Light Blogging

I haven't been posting nearly as much here in recent days as in the past. Here's my lame excuse: I've been seriously busy the last several days and it's going to be like that for awhile. Sorry.

Also, this blog online magazine turns 4 years old on Nov. 30. I'm giving serious thought to taking the whole month of December off and letting a few guest-bloggers fill in.

Blogging New Ground

A story in yesterday's Nashville City Paper looked at the role blogs are playing in the 2006 Senate race in Tennessee.

Defector

Former Memphis newspaper reporter Paula Wade has left Gov. Phil Bredesen's administration and taken a new job as communications director with the Tennessee Justice Center, which has battled the administration's efforts to slash hundreds of thousands of people from the TennCare rolls. Liz Garrigan thinks this is horrible news for Bredesen: "Clearly, Wade, whose reporting expertise was TennCare, didn't like what she saw on the Hill and became disillusioned with her boss and the direction of the state's health care program."

That's probably right.

By the way, I have little regard for Paula Wade's credibility, honesty or sense of fair play.

Harold Ford Jr. says, "The buck stops with my staff"

In 1977, 24-year-old Deborah Groseclose was raped, stabbed, strangled and left to die in the horrible summer heat in the trunk of her own car. Phillip Michael Britt and Ronald Rickman were hired by William Groseclose, the husband of Deborah Groseclose, to carry out the murder. Groseclose and Rickman initially were sentenced to death after their first trial, but in a new trial in 1999 they were convicted again and sentenced to life in prison. In the new trial, Britt helped prosecutors convict his two codefendants. Cutting a deal with the prosecutor that probably saved his own life.

This week Britt came up for parole - and U.S. Rep. Harold Ford Jr. sent the parole board a letter that supported Britt's bid for parole. Then the press got wind of Ford's thumbs-up for paroling a vicious killer and Ford quickly changed his tune, said he doesn't think Britt should get parole, and blamed the letter on his congressional staff.

Blaming the staff is a standard "out" for a politician caught in a gaffe.

The Commercial Appeal has the story. Britt's parole bid was denied, which means he won't be out in time to vote against Ford in next year's Democratic primary.

If Ford really did support Britt's bid for parole, but flip-flopped when the media got wind of it, then he's a liar. If he signed a staff-written letter without reading it, then he's incompetent and has incompetent staffers. Neither of those possibilities recommends him for the U.S. Senate.

UPDATE: Ford fires back, blaming "right wing bloggers" for "politicizing the tragedy," when it was Ford's congressional staff that injected politics into Britt's parole bid by sending a letter to the parole board. Bloggers didn't politicize the tragedy, they politicized Ford's stupid letter.

Given that Ford says he doesn't agree with the letter's contents, the most likely explanation for the letter is that his staff wrote it, and he signed it without reading it.

Does Rep. Ford regularly sign things without reading them and verifying that what is going out in his name actually reflects what he believes? The letter was a gaffe, pure and simple, and it says something about Ford's incompetence. Blaming "right wing bloggers" for his staff's mistake and his own failure is just a naked attempt to divert attention from it.

As for Ford's claim that bloggers are politicizing the tragedy, consider that his press release that makes that claim also proudly states that Ford has "spoken to the victim’s family" and "In our conversation, I expressed my regret for the letter and assured them of my enduring support for them and all other victims of crimes, especially murder victims" and then goes on to express Ford's support for the death penalty for various high-profile killers.

If anyone is politicizing the tragedy, it is Ford.

...For more on this, read the good comments from readers over at Blogging for Bryant.

August 23, 2005

Folkies, Protestors and Fred Phelps

You ought to check out Illinois blogger John Ruberry's Marathon Pundit blog even if you aren't from Illinois. Ruberry emailed to alert me that wacko "preacher" Fred Phelps and his merry band of idiots are planning to picket the funerals of two Tennessee soldiers who were killed in Iraq.

Let me state my opinion of Fred Phelps and his cultists as plainly as I can: Fred Phelps is a walking, talking, hate-filled crime against both humanity and God.

I'm tempted to go to one of those funerals and hold up a sign reminding Phelps' Wackos that greater love hath no man than to lay down his life for a friend, and the soldiers whose funerals they are picketing laid down their lives as part of America's noble effort to befriend the people of Iraq.

Rubbery also had this to say about "anacronistic folkie Joan Baez" showing up to join Cindy Sheehan's anti-war protest in Crawford, Texas:

This ought to double her monthly CD sales to maybe, 10 a month. When will Country Joe & the Fish show up?

A Killing Failure

Gov. Phil Bredesen's record on TennCare reform has gone from atrocious to abysmal. From the editorial in today's Tennessean:

At this point in the painful process of TennCare cuts, the absence of the much ballyhooed safety net is simply inexcusable. Gov. Phil Bredesen's administration never minced words about the stark reality of cuts in TennCare enrollment. But throughout the process, the administration was quick to assure everyone of its intention to build a safety net to help catch victims of the TennCare changes. The legislature did its part, appropriating millions of dollars to help make the safety net function. Cuts came, and the funding is approved. But the net is not up, and the administration bears the blame.

...Six weeks after the state began to cut people from the rolls, the funds haven't made their way to their intended targets. Care providers are being swamped, and some of the worst nightmares of the TennCare crisis are being realized.

...The state Department of Health hasn't completed its plans for divvying up the money. The earliest the money is expected to be distributed is mid-October, which is an eternity to patients with chronic illnesses. The funds to help county health facilities were expected to provide hires of 234 staffers. But no staffers have been hired, and under the state's original plan, they aren't all expected to be in place until January.

Administration officials say they're working as fast as they can. But the safety net plan doesn't require the state to establish the clinics: They're already up and running. All the state has to do is cut the checks.

But it's not unexplainable. Bredesen made his millions - the millions he used to buy himself a political career - by owning and operating HMOs. HMOs make bigger profits if they cut fewer and smaller checks to healthcare providers.

August 22, 2005

Drumroll Please...

New to the blogroll... please welcome Mike's America. Click. Read. Scroll. Learn. Enjoy.

"Each abortion is really about two deaths"

Bob Krumm has an excellent post on the topic of abortion. Don't miss it.

We Got The Memo

Broadcasting & Cable magazine has a great story about grassroots video journalism and its increasing use by television news operations such as Nashville's WKRN. Nashville blogger Paul Chenoweth is featured extensively in the story, which concludes with a rather ironic quote from a senior news exec at CBS:

Even with safeguards in place, news executives worry that questionable content could slip through. "There are a lot of unscrupulous people out there that could be trying to dupe a news organization," says Marcy McGinnis, senior VP of newsgathering for CBS News.

Personally, I'm far more likely to trust a news report from Paul Chenoweth than from CBS, 60 Minutes and Dan "If they're forgeries, I'd like to break that story" Rather.

Dishonor and Sacrifice

I've barely written about Cindy Sheehan, the rabidly anti-war mom whose son Casey was killed in combat in Iraq, and now I don't have to - this op-ed in the Sunday LA Times says all that needs to be said about Sheehan's protest and the press coverage thereof. One fact you probably haven't heard about Sheehan's son Casey, whose death in Iraq sparked the protest: He reenlisted after the war started. And he volunteered for the rescue mission in which he was killed. In every possibly way, Casey Sheehan volunteered - his mother dishonors his sincerity of purpose, his heroism and his sacrifice by blaming his death on President Bush rather than on the Islamist terrorists who killed Casey Sheehan in a battle he volunteered for.

Also don't miss: Mark Steyn's column on Cindy Sheehan and the Left's insistence on calling American soldiers serving in Iraq "children." They aren't children. They are adults who volunteered, not children who were drafted. They are volunteers and heroes, not victims.

UPDATE: The Sheehan protest has officially jumped the shark.

August 21, 2005

Defending Hargett

Matt White, who formerly worked for Tennessee House Minority Leader Tre Hargett, has written a very good piece about Hargett's decision to leave the legislature and take a job as a lobbyist for Pfizer - and about the way the media and some Democrats have reacted to it. White dismembers the hypocrisy of state Rep. Ulysses Jones:

And speaking of Tennessee Waltz, several of the editorials/articles above quoted Ulysses Jones' assertion that Hargett is a hypocrite for taking a lobbying job after he supposedly supported a prohibition on the practice. ULYSSES JONES? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Surely, this isn't the same Ulysses Jones that chairs the committee that killed the revolving door bill. Surely, this isn't the Ulysses Jones that regularly makes a mockery of any kind of ethics legislation that comes before his inner sanctum. Surely to goodness, this isn't the Ulysses Jones that was offered a bribe, then failed to report it and then topped it off by accepting a campaign contribution in cash from the same people that offered him the bribe. Oh my stars, it sure is the same Ulysses Jones. So, I ask you again, would a revolving door bill be more beneficial than a law requiring the disclosure to the proper authorities of an attempted bribe and the abolition of cash contributions for campaigns? Try and get that bill through State and Local Government Committee. The Chairman will run you out of the room.

August 20, 2005

The Wrong Target

The Tennessean has raised the possibility in both story and an editorial that state Rep. Tre Hargett might have voted Pfizer's way on an important piece of legislation, while also seeking a job with Pfizer as a lobbyist. As I outlined here, there is no evidence of that - and the legislation, the Tennessee Affordable Drug Act of 2005, passed the state House on a vote of 93-0. Hargett was one of six legislators who did not vote.

Hargett, as the news media has reported, is member of three legislative committees through which the legislation - HB 1410 - passed. But no news media has reported on how Hargett voted on HB 1410 in those committees.

I am doing the digging they haven't done.

Hargett is a member of the Health & Human Resources Committee, the FInance, Ways and Means Committee, and the Calendar and Rules Committee.

According to House records, the legislation was approved by a voice vote in both H&HR on May 10 and FW&M on May 19.

The Calendar and Rules Committee then placed the bill on the calendar for the full House, which passed it 93-0 on May 24.

As the legislation passed by voice vote in committee, there is no official record of how Hargett voted. So I emailed the chairman and vice-chairman of both committees to ask their recollection of how Hargett voted on HB 1410, and whether he spoke in committee or privately against the bill.

So far, I have heard from Rep. Joe Armstrong, chairman of H&HR, who said, "I do not recall," and from Rep. Craig Fitzhugh, chairman FW&M, who emailed this response: "My memory is not the best and the record will speak for itself, but I have no recollection of Rep. Hargett's vote on the matter. Neither do I recall whether he and I spoke about this bill."

I also emailed the prime sponsor of HB 1410, state Rep. David Shepard, D-Dickson. I have not heard back from him.

By the way, Rep. Shepard is a pharmacist. He had a clear conflict of interest in pushing the HB 1401, the Tennessee Affordable Drug Act of 2005.

So The Tennessean raises the possibility - sans evidence - that Hargett voted Pfizer's way on a piece of legislation that we know was sponsored and ushered through the legislture by a pharmacist who we know voted the pharmacy industry's way.

Okay, whatever.

August 19, 2005

Full Moon

The rising full moon was orange in the sky when I photographed it tonight, but in the photo the moon showed up white, surrounded by orange-tinted clouds. I'm not sure why. You know, more than a third of a century after it happened, it's still extremely impressive that we actually sent some people up there to walk around and bring back some pieces of it. I hope I live long enough to enjoy the day we land people on Mars.

We Don't Know Who is Winning - Except it Isn't Corker

In the race for the GOP nomination to replace Bill Frist in the U.S. Senate, the Van Hilleary campaign has released new poll numbers showing Hilleary with a big lead over fellow former congressman Ed Bryant. Other polls have shown the opposite. Who is really ahead? I don't know. It would be interesting to see the polling data below the top line - did Hilleary's pollster get a good statewide sample, or did he poll too many folks in Hilleary's old congressional district, giving Hilleary an advantage?

I do know this: I know a lot of conservative Republicans. I don't know a single one of them who is supporting Hilleary, but I know several who are eager to vote for Bryant.

It's worth noting, however, that there has not been a single poll released by any of the campaigns that has any good news in it for Bob Corker's campaign. If the Corker campaign had one, it would have released it.

Four!

Bob Krumm continued to pursue this story and got results, as an error-tainted op-ed has now been completely removed from The Tennessean's website. The paper is to be commended for doing the right thing.

Right, But Unfair

Today's Tennessean editorial, "Hargett personifies need for 'revolving door' law," is right - but rather unfair.

Anyone looking for an example of why Tennessee government needs strong ethics legislation can find one in Tre Hargett.

Hargett, the Republican House leader from Bartlett, announced this week he is leaving his position to become a lobbyist for the drug giant Pfizer. His step from leading lawmaker to drug firm lobbyist shows part of the problem on Capitol Hill. Rep. Ulysses Jones, D-Memphis, called Hargett's step "hypocritical," and it's hard to find a better word for it.

For starters, Hargett is vice chairman of the House ethics committee and a member of a joint legislative panel now looking at ethics proposals. The joint committee is expected to make recommendations on ethics legislation before the next gathering of the General Assembly.

Hargett's departure, expected in September, comes right in the heart of that effort. One of the proposals that should come from that ethics debate should be a law that prohibits people in state government from leaving their jobs and going directly into lobbying the government. Yet Hargett is doing precisely what such a proposal would outlaw. And he doesn't see a problem with that.

But quoting Rep. Ulysses Jones calling Hargett's move "hypocritical" gives readers the impression that Rep. Jones favors closing the revolving door. He doesn't.

Rather than quoting Rep. Jones calling Hargett "hypocritical," the paper ought to have called out Jones on his own hypocrisy and challenged Jones to support the revolving-door bill he and most of his fellow Democrats oppose.

The editorial continues...

By his own admission, Hargett might well have first sought the Pfizer job while the General Assembly was in session, dealing with issues that affect the pharmaceutical industry. In that situation, any vote that he cast even remotely related to the drug industry or health care becomes questionable. Was he voting for the best interests of his constituents, or voting the best interests of his future employer?

But there is no evidence of that.

The legislation - which negatively impacted Pfizer by expanding TennCare's payment for lower-cost generic drugs - passed the House 93-0. Hargett did not against it - he was one of six representatives recorded as not voting at all, meaning he wasn't present for the vote.

As for the committee votes, the House website provides no easy-to-access records, though it should be possible to interview the bill's sponsor and members of those committees to determine how Hargett voted. Given his reputation for honesty and committment to his constituents and his job, my guess is Hargett voted in the best interests of the state rather than Pfizer.

Unless and until The Tennessean does the reportorial work to find out how Hargett voted, it is unfair to do what today's editorial does - intimate that he might have voted Pfizer's way in order to curry favor with a potential future employer.

The editorial concludes by saying that "Hargett has helped put a face on" the need for legislation "to rid state government of a 'revolving door' between public service and lobbying."

They're right about that.

UPDATE: The Nashville City Paper's editorial, "Hargett's move regrettable, but can't blame him," gives the right perspective - and also notes the hypocrisy of some of Hargett's critics:

Meanwhile, political hay is being made. On Tuesday, Democratic Party Chairman Bob Tuke blasted the GOP for being in the "back pocket of the drug companies." Wednesday, House GOP Chairman Charles Sargent fired back that it was Democrats who defeated a measure to prohibit the "revolving door" issue last session and called Tuke "out of line."

August 18, 2005

Today's Lunchtime Links

Via Donald Sensing, I found this wonderful answer to Cindy Sheehan's question of why her son died in Iraq. It is a very long essay, but one that you really should read, and should forward to anyone you know who opposes the Iraq war.

By the way, not all military moms agree with Cindy Sheehan – and some of them are headed to Crawford, Texas, to let President Bush know that.

Also today: Bob Krumm says Tre Hargett, leaving his lawmaker job for one as a lobbyist, "did the wrong thing, but probably not for the wrong reasons." I think Bob's right, and I can't blame Hargett, who has young children, for wanting a job that paid more. I have young children too.

Menwhile, Rick Forman wonders if blogs are popular in part due to "the lack of real investigative journalism coming from the main stream media." ... And Memphis Mike Hollihan says stop whining about gas prices.

Surplus Confusion Update

NASHVILLE - Today's Tennessean story about the state's revenue surplus may help clear up the confusion over two conflicting press releases issued yesterday by Gov. Phil Bredesen's office and his Department of Finance & Administration.

The Tennessean reports that "Gov. Phil Bredesen said yesterday that state revenue for the past fiscal year is about $100 million above estimates." But the F&A department yesterday put the revenue surplus for fiscal 2004-05 at $260.8 million.

The difference? F&A is comparing actual revenue to the amount of revenue forecast by the legislature in May 2004 for the 2004-05 fiscal year, which is the amount the legislature budgeted to spend in tht fiscal year. Bredesen's office is comparing the revenue to the updated revenue estimates for that the State Funding Board and the legislature adopted in May 2005 for the almost-finished 2004-05 fiscal year. The legislature upped the estimates by around $140 million, then promptly worked with the administration to spend the extra money during the last three months of the fiscal year.

Tennessee's actual revenue surplus over the amount necessary to balance the original FY 2004-05 budget is $260.8 million. The Bredesen administration is apparently working intentionally to obscure that fact as Bredesen's claim of a much lower surplus mirrors one made by his revenue commissioner three weeks ago.

By comparing actual revenue to the revised estimates instead of admitting tht the administration already spent more than half of the surplus, the administration is deceiving the people of Tennessee.

Campfield: Kelo "plants seeds of insecurity, doubt"

State Rep. Stacey Campbell had a column published in the Knoxville News Sentinel recently regarding the Supreme Court's Kelo decision and legislation he proposed last year - before Kelo - to stop governmental abuse of its eminent domain power. The column is reproduced here on his blog and it is a must-read. Here's an excerpt:

Our forefathers risked everything to embark upon a bold experiment that would leave the lords and serfs of a feudal system behind, and instead built in individual property rights as a cornerstone of liberty in our new society.

The American dream of owning your own land, home or business is now threatened under the Kelo shadow-for it plants seeds of insecurity and doubt when no one knows if their property may be subject to seizure for the "economic good" of the community.

Such action returns us to pre-Magna Carta times, except the battles for property will not be won by the physically superior, but rather by the wealthiest or most politically connected. … The list of vulnerable citizens is long-from farmers, to the elderly and poor, to churches and non-profits, to the corner deli, to unsuspecting families in their dream homes. No one is immune.

August 17, 2005

A Surplus of Confusion

NASHVILLE - Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen's administration on Wednesday issued two confusing announcements regarding the state's tax revenue surplus. Just hours after the Tennessee Department of Finance & Administration announced a $260 million surplus for the entire fiscal year, Gov. Phil Bredesen's office announced the state had recieved $120 million in surplus revenue in May.

The Nashville City Paper posted the breaking news late Wednesday afternoon."I think it’s a testament to the healthy state of the economy here and the fact that we've been conservative in our projections about things, so we're trying to always give good news on the finances instead of trying to explain some bad news," Bredesen said.Bredesen said the $120 million surplus would be used to strengthen the TennCare "safety net."

But the governor's announcement of $120 million in surplus revenue in May is confusing.

As I reported here on June 10, Tennessee collected about $10 million - not $120 million - in surplus revenue in May, and ended May with $102 million in surplus revenue after the first ten months of revenue collection for the fiscal 2004-05 state budget.

This isn't the first time the administration has issued a misleading statement about the size of the revenue surplus.

Three weeks ago, Revenue Commissioner Loren Chumley told a group of Knoxville Rotarians that the state would end the fiscal year with a surplus of "above $100 million" even though the state's surplus stood at $194.5 million through June. As I explained here, Chumley's claim of a surplus of around $100 million appeared to be a bit of deceptive spin as she, apparently, was comaring the revenue totals to the total actual spending, rather than the budgeted spending. That makes the revenue surplus appear smaller because the Bredesen administration had already made plans to spend more than the legislature budgeted, eating into the revenue surplus.

I have sent Bredesen's office an email seeking a clarification.

Tennessee Ends Fiscal Year With Huge Revenue Surplus

NASHVILLE - Tennessee state government finished the 2004-2005 fiscal year with a $260.8 million surplus, according to data released today by the Department of Finance & Administration.

Revenue collected in July, the 12th month of tax collections for the fiscal year, were $66.2 million more than the budgeted estimate, powered in part by $26.9 million in surplus sales tax collections in July.

The state is described as having a $260.8 million surplus because the actual revenue collections for the fiscal year were $260.8 million ahead of the budgeted revenue estimate adopted as part of the state budget by the 103rd General Assembly in May of last year. The legislature gets its estimates from the State Funding Board

In May of this year the General Assembly adopted new State Funding Board revenue estimates for the 2004-05 fiscal year that estimated a net general fund surplus of just $142.6 million. In other words, the State Funding Board has chalked up another year of inaccurate revenue forecasting, missing this year's actual revenue surplus by $118.2 million.

The bottom line: Total revenue grew a hair under 6 percent, and Tennessee collected $260.8 million more in taxes than it needed to balance the 2004-05 budget that the legislature passed in May 2004 - or about $175 per family of four.

Still, taxpayers shouldn't bother getting too excited by the big surplus. There are no plans for a tax rebate or reducing the sales tax or removing the sales tax from groceries.

Instead, the Bredesen administration plans to spend the excess revenue.

UPDATE: When the state's Revenue Commissioner, Loren Chumley, said just a month ago that the state would end the fiscal year with a surplus of "above $100 million," I predicted it would be around $225 million. We were both wrong.

UPDATE: As requested by a commenter below, here are links to the press release, and also to the data in an Excel file. The data shows that the sales tax, Tennessee's single largest source of revenue, performed almost exactly as expected, while the franchise & excise taxes on business, the second largest source of revenue, provided $221.3 million of the excess revenue, indicating the state's economy was much healthier over the past year than the legislature's economic seers predicted it would be back in May 2004.

Tre Target

State House Minority Leader Tre Hargett, R-Bartlett, will resign from the state legislature next month and become a lobbyist for Pfizer. Here is the Tennessean story.

Hargett, who will oversee lobbying for Pfizer in Tennessee and Alabama, is getting a lot of criticism, especially as Hargett has backed the so-called "revolving door" bill that would mandate a one-year delay between being a lawmaker and lobbying the legislature.

Of course, some of the outrage is coming from Democrats, who control the state House and have always managed to scuttle such lobbing reform legislation in the past. Rep. Ulysses Jones, a Memphis Democrat, is quoted in The Tennessean today calling Hargett "very hypocritical" given that Hargett's GOP legislators pushed a "revolving-door" bill that would prevent legislators from jumping into lobbyist jobs straight from elected office.

Perhps Hargett's decision to become a lobbyist and immediately start lobbying the Tennessee legislature is a bit hypocritical, but it also gives the GOP the best chance it has had in years to pass the revolving-door bill, a much-needed ethics rules reform. The Tennessee GOP can use Hargett's Democratic critics' faux outrage to demand that they back real lobbying reform legislation, including the revolving-door provision.

If Rep. Jones truly thinks Hargett is wrong to jump from the legislature immediately to lobbying it, well, nothing is stopping Rep. Jones and his fellow Democrats from sponsoring a revolving-door bill - like this one that they failed to back last year - and passing it next session. They could even make it retroactive to prevent Hargett from directly lobbying the Tennessee legislature until September 2006.

On the other hand, if Rep. Jones and other legislators who are criticizing Hargett today don't push hard to pass a revolving-door bill in the next legislative session, it is they who are the worst hypocrites in this story.

A Key Ommission
Today's Tennessean story works hard to push the impression that Hargett's move to become a Pfizer lobbyist might be an ethical breach, but the actual evidence for that is fairly thin. Yeah, Hargett first inquired about the job opening while the legislature was in session. And yeah, he has received campaign contributions from Pfizer. That's all very thin smoke.

The thicker smoke may be that Hargett sat on three committees that considered legislation that impacted Pfizer, apparently while knowing he might apply for the Pfizer job.

But there may not be any real fire there.

According to the paper, that legislation negatively impacted Pfizer. The paper omits to mention how Hargett voted on the legislation - which, by the way, passed. How Hargett voted wo