December 31, 2005

Major Tennessee Business Group Backs TABOR

Ben Cunningham sent along a link to the PDF of the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce and Industry's legislative agenda for 2005, which includes (on page 7-8) an endorsement of the Taxpayers' Bill of Rights concept. Specifically, the organization, which represents Tennessee's manufacturers, expressed support for legislation to "cap spending growth in state funds at the growth in the state's economy and not allow simple legislative override, but instead require reserving or rebating funds above that rate." The Chamber also endorsed the proposal in 2004 and I expect to find it on their priority list for 2006 as well. Watch this space.

Mapping the Money

Ben Cunningham emailed me a link to an interesting new website which integrates Google mapping and politial campaign contribution data for the 2004 presidential campaign from The Fundrace Project to show the location, name, and amount of contribution in a zip code. The site also generates several graphics about party affiliation. While the town and county I live in is often stereotyped as solidly Republican, 40 percent of the campaign contributions from my zip code went to Democrat John Kerry and/or the Democratic National Committee. The site is a work in progress and only includes contribution data from the 2004 presidential race.

December 30, 2005

The Fix is In

State Rep. Stacey Campfield, R-Knoxville, has a must-read blog post sounding the alert on the latest push by some in the state legislature to make your income subject to taxation - by letting cities and counties levy "payroll" taxes. He also notes a parallel push to allow cities and counties to hit housing developers with higher taxes, which will just drive up the cost of new homes, and a move (reported two weeks ago first on this blog, and four days later by the AP) to end the right of Tennesseans to reject certain tax increases via referendums.

Campfield's comparison of politicians craving more tax revenue to drug addicts craving another fix is spot-on.

The big question: are payroll taxes permitted by the state constitution? Here are the facts:

Article 11, Section 9, of the state constitution says this: The General Assembly shall not authorize any municipality to tax incomes, estates, or inheritances, or to impose any other tax not authorized by Sections 28 or 29 of Article 2 of this constitution.

The language of Article 11, Section 9, clearly states that the legislature is not permitted to authorize municipalities to tax income. Section 9 also serves as commentary on Article 2 Sections 28 and 29, which list a variety of taxes the legislature is authorized to levy. While there may be some wiggle room and gray areas in interpreting what is taxable and what isn't, Article 11 Section 9 makes it crystal clear that in income tax is part of the list of taxes that are "not authorized by Sections 28 or 29 of Article 2."

Bottom line: An income tax is unconstitutional statewide or at the local or county level and not one single pro-income tax elected official, attorney general or activist has ever tried try to explain how an income tax can be constitutional in light of Article 11 Section 9. Tennessee Attorney General Paul G. Summers argues that an income tax is constitutional if the legislation is written properly. But when I confronted him with Article 11 Section 9 during a station break during a broadcast of the Teddy Bart's Round Table radio show a few years ago, Summers had no answer. He promised to get back to me with a thorough response, but never did, and his legal opinion on the constitutionality of the income tax dismisses Article 11 Section 9 with artful but ultimately deceptive spin.

Which leaves only two questions regarding the proposal for local or county payroll taxes. The first question is, is a payroll tax an income tax? If the answer is "yes," then the legislature is clearly and expressly forbidden by the state constitution - Article 11 Section 9 - from passing legislation authorizing cities and counties to levy a payroll tax. If the answer is "no," the question is, does Section 28 or Section 29 of Article 2 of the Tennessee Constitution permit a payroll tax?

I've read it, and a "payroll tax" isn't listed as an authorized tax, though in recent years liberal politicians and the state's pro-income tax attorney general have insisted that the legislature is authorized to tax "privileges" and can tax just about anything it wants if it first defines it in law as a "privilege." Thus, I expect you'll see payroll-tax legislation defining the paying of a payroll in Tennessee as a "privilege."

Test Tax
In addition to being yet another revenue-grab, the payroll tax push is nothing less than a backdoor way of testing the legal theories by which the pro-income tax side intends to seek a court ruling favorable to the income tax. Here's how: If a law is enacted authorizing municipalities to tax payrolls, it will be challenged in court - no matter whether it defines payrolls as a taxable "privilege" or uses some other legal arguments to try to get it to pass constitutional muster, the law's constitutionality will ultimately be argued before the Tennessee Supreme Court.

If the Court rules the payroll tax is constitutional - which it could do as the court is stacked with liberal judges - legislation enacting a statewide general income tax would be written the same way, resistance in the legislature to the income tax would decline and eventual passage would be much more likely. There are a handful of legislators who personally favor the income tax but don't want to vote for it and then see it defeated in court, and have to face voters angered by their pro-IT vote without being able to buy off some of the opposition by spending some of that new tax revenue for pork for the folks back home. If they believe it will survive a court challenge, they're more likely to vote for it.

Bottom line: those pushing to allow cities to tax payrolls are the same people who were last seen trying to ram an income tax through the legislature only, this time, they're trying to do it through the back door.

I've written about the related issues of the constitutionality of the income tax, and of the payroll tax, several times in the past, including here and here.

Tag, I'm It

Doug Petch recently tagged me to participate in the Meme of Fours, so, here goes...

Four jobs you've had in your life: Pizza delivery driver, newspaper reporter, magazine editor, public relations specialist.
Four movies you could watch over and over: Gladiator, Field of Dreams, Saving Private Ryan, Rooster Cogburn
Four places you've lived: Suburbs of Philadelphia, Abilene Texas, Lubbock Texas, Nashville.
Four TV shows you love to watch: CSI: Miami, Boston Legal, Everybody Loves Raymond, X-Files
Four places you've been on vacation: California, Alberta Canada, Florida/Redneck Riviera, Colorado.
Four websites you visit daily: Instapundit, The Tennessean, Google News, Nashville Files
Four of your favorite foods: Steak, Tex-Mex, donuts, Dr Pepper
Four places you'd rather be: Colorado, Montana, Austin Texas, Arizona
Four albums you can't live without: Guitars, Cadillacs by Dwight Yoakam, Born in the USA by Bruce Springsteen, Tunnel of Love by Bruce Springsteen, Full Moon Fever by Tom Petty.

Now I'm supposed to tag four more people. So, Bob Krumm, Donald Sensing, Sharon Cobb and Michael Silence, Tag, You're it!

Progress

Fun with Photoshop. Click the image for an explanation.

President Signed Secret Order for Fake "News" Site

I'm shocked - shocked! - that the Department of Defense has been paying freelance journalists to write news stories for informational websites set up to help our side win the war. The Los Angeles Times reports on the secret presidential directive that resulted in the creation of the "news" site to help us win the war in, uh, Kosovo. This latest news raises questions about how George Warmonger Bush was able to lead America into war in Kosovo while he was still governor of Texas, where Halliburton is headquartered.

The two websites are run by U.S. European Command, based in Stuttgart, Germany, and maintained by Anteon Corp., a Fairfax, Va., contractor. The European Command is one of five regional U.S. military headquarters around the world and is given authority for U.S. operations in Europe and most of Africa.

The Balkans website, originally called Balkan Exchange and later renamed Southeast European Times, was a result of a secret directive signed by President Clinton in 1999. The order, called Presidential Decision Directive 68, launched an information offensive to counter Serbian propaganda during the Kosovo war.

The European Command created the Africa website in October 2004. It attempts to advance U.S. interests in a region long sympathetic to Islamic fundamentalism. The Maghreb region encompasses Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, Mauritania and Morocco, countries that are in the European Command's area of responsibility.

Neither the Southeast European Times nor the African website, called Magharebia, prominently states its connection to the U.S. military, although both link to a disclaimer saying that the sites are "sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense."

The Southeast European Times aims to "offer accurate, balanced and forward-looking coverage of developments in Southeast Europe," the website reads. "Each business day, the site captures the top news from across the region as reported in local and international media. It also features analysis, interviews and commentary by paid Southeast European Times correspondents in the region."

The correspondents often are freelance reporters hired by Anteon Corp. Recent stories on the websites have highlighted a thawing of relations between Serbia and Croatia and efforts to promote female entrepreneurship in northern Africa.

Both websites feature stories culled from independent news services such as the Associated Press, UPI and Reuters. They also provide links to websites of the United Nations, the U.S. State Department, and government organizations in the Balkans and Africa.

Two other U.S. military commands - the Pacific Command, which oversees operations in Asia, and the Central Command, which is responsible for the Middle East - are developing their own versions of regional information websites.

But, hey, if the military wants people to see all those sites, it ought to be dropping some cash to run ads on a bunch of hawkish, neo-con blogs!

Costly Failure

They're from the government and they're here to make poor people stand in line while they don't help them. S-town Mike over at Enclave comments on the same story - and doesn't want poor folks lining up for help in his neighborhood.

December 29, 2005

High Over Texas

A shot from my most recent travels. More at Flickr.

December 28, 2005

I'm an excellent driver

By Nathan Moore
Lt. Governor John Wilder (D-Outer Space) has admitted to something near $30 million in legislative waste. Bob Krumm notes

Lt. Governor John Wilder thinks that a month-long special ethics session is unnecessary. Instead, he argues, the ethics legislation could have been considered during regular session.

"We don't do anything the first six weeks we're there (in regular session). We don't pass any bills for six or seven weeks."

Ummm, Senator, are you saying that you lead an organization that doesn't "do anything" for six weeks every year? How much taxpayer money have you wasted over the last quarter-century?

Well, let's figure it out. John Wilder has led the Senate since 1971. Thirty-five years times six weeks a year, times seven days a week, is 1,470 days--over four full years of time that the Lt. Governor says has been wasted while the Legislature has been in session. At $19,800 per day, the estimated daily cost of running the Legislature, John Wilder admits to having wasted 29,106,000 of the taxpayers' dollars under his watch.

Break on Through to the Other Side

By Donna Locke
Tennesseans for Immigration Control and Reform
U.S. Border Patrol agents estimate that for every person caught crossing our borders illegally, four to seven slip by. Some of those caught are repeat crossers.

From Oct. 1, 2004, to Sept. 30, 2005, the Border Patrol made 1,188,977 apprehensions along our land borders between the ports of entry, according to Maria Valencia, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman I talked with today. Of those apprehensions, 165,175 were non-Mexican illegal entrants, Valencia said, and non-Mexicans apprehended in fiscal year 2004 came from about 175 countries. Multiply those apprehensions by the estimate above, and you'll have some idea of the number of people who were not caught but slipped past the Border Patrol and into our country.

Often, illegal entrants, including those from terrorism-sponsoring countries, are released into our country with orders to appear in immigration court. In 2004, 90 percent of those so ordered did not show up. What a shock. I don't know the current percentage of no-shows, but I doubt it's much improved, although in Sept. 2005, the Department of Homeland Security expanded its expedited removal process from three to nine Border Patrol sectors, implementing the program across the southwest border. Expedited removal targets non-Mexican illegal aliens only and returns those aliens to their countries of origin as soon as possible, without release into the United States.

Since the early 1990s, 1 million or more people have illegally settled in our country each year. That's in addition to the whopping 1 million legal immigrants entering annually for many years now. Anyone who researches immigration knows the official estimates of the number of illegal aliens in the United States are lower than the reality. The true number probably is between 20 million and 30 million, based on what some economists, labor analysts, immigration-enforcement agents, and ethnic-advocacy groups are saying. An estimated half of illegals did not run the border but came through our ports of entry illegally or legally (initially).

Last year, American Border Patrol, an immigration control/reform organization, smuggled a simulated weapon of mass destruction across our southern border - twice - and walked up to the Tucson (Ariz.) Federal Building with it, unquestioned. I think they did it again this year.

Don't say it's impossible to secure our borders. It's never been tried. A University of Texas study estimated that 16,133 Border Patrol agents are needed to secure our borders. We have 11,289 BP agents, as of Dec. 10, 2005, according to Valencia, for nearly 6,000 miles of land border.

Away from the border, we have 6,000 special agents for interior enforcement of immigration laws, said Dean Boyd, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). That number does not include other ICE employees such as detention and removal officers, the Federal Protective Service, or intelligence analysts, Boyd said. Because of the 2003 merger of the old Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) with Customs, some sources say 2,300 or fewer agents are doing real interior immigration enforcement now. ICE has been instructed to concentrate only on illegals who have committed other crimes here or have absconded.

For a trip behind the smoke screen, read John W. Slagle's book, Illegal Entries. Slagle, a retired Border Patrol special agent and highly decorated military veteran, rips the veil off the Homeland Security charade and details how we've lost our national sovereignty via our presidents and Congress since 1965. Also, please read this.

Comptroller Suggests State Control of School Funding

By Adam Groves

Huge news on the issue of education funding is in today's Commercial Appeal. State Comptroller John Morgan is proposing the state provide complete funding for public schools, leaving local governments with only their construction costs. The state would create new revenue to cover the cost of fully funding school operations by assuming control of the local share of state sales tax and imposing a new state-wide property tax.

Because half of local-option sales taxes -- the tax of up to 2.75 percent that cities and counties can tack onto the state's 7 percent sales tax -- is already dedicated by state law for education, its seizure by the state would be a wash for the 33 counties that levy the maximum 2.75 rate. Local governments that have a lower local option would see a larger share of that revenue seized, unless they raised their tax rates to the 2.75 level. In addition, At the funding level Morgan proposes, a state property tax of about $1.92 per $100 of assessed value would be required.

"Local property taxes in many places could be significantly reduced if the state were funding operations. Some people would pay less; most would pay more probably since total funding would move closer to what other states spend," said Morgan, the state's chief auditor and a key policy adviser to the legislature.

How's that for contradiction. On the one hand, I can see the economies of scale that would come from one entity managing all of the state's schools, rather than having 95 individual systems, especially where our state courts are mandating some degree of equalization, specifically as it relates to pay scales, among the systems. However, this seems like a bad deal for the tax payers, when centralization will add, not subtract layers of bureacracy. For instance, under the plan, the local governments would still be accountable for improving results, which means you would still have all the local school boards, administration, etc.

The fact of the matter is that the Comptroller, by his own admission, concludes that Tennessean tax payers will pay more for this scheme in the long run. If tax payers are paying more, it's hard to reconcile any pitch that includes the notion that governments will save money. How can tax payers end up paying more and the government save money? You don't need more money if you're spending less.

This is WAY over the line

by Ben Cunningham
This is darn near unbelieveable. Metro Nashville Taxpayers, via the Division of Minority and Small Business Assistance, are assisting with a workshop that will promote a sweetheart deal for a private company and an out of state developer that is currently under consideration by the Metro Council.

Try this: The next time you have a zoning change or some other measure coming before the Metro Council, call the Metro Division of Minority and Small Business Assistance and ask them to assist you. They should help you the in the very same way that they help others. This is an insult to taxpayers and WAY over the line.

If I Had My Druthers

I love Nashville, but I'd rather live in Austin, Texas, especially this time of year. Why? Click here, then here (or click to read the extended-entry part of this post). And because I bet nobody - well, nobody sane - went swimming outside in Nashville today, and watched bicyclists, joggers and Segway riders go by on the nearby trail dressed for summer.

A Tale of Two Cities' 10-Day Forecasts
Nashville, Tennessee:

Austin, Texas

December 27, 2005

Not Yo' Daddy's Union

By Donna Locke
Tennesseans for Immigration Control and Reform
Three things here, unrelated - though, as I think about it, perhaps not.

I've thought it over, and I believe that someday, probably soon, a new job category will arise in the spirit of professional housesitters, plant sitters, and dog walkers. Yep, professional guest-bloggers are just around the corner. The guest-bloggers gone pro will organize and eventually have their own union and will post Tennessee Democratic Party Chairman Bob Tuke's press releases verbatim even as imported, illegal cheap labor steals their jobs and Tuke's press releases are issued only in foreign languages. President Bush will brag about all the new jobs that have been created, and no one will look behind the curtain. It will remind me of this and this and, of course, this.

Speaking of the corner, it's always good to have a backup plan. I'm makin' myself a sign: "Will Guest-blog for Food."

Next: Every day for years I have checked Tennesseans for Immigration Control's inbox and waded through e-mails from people gushing about how much they loved me in Neon Maniacs. Please. I am not that Donna Locke, though that does sound like a movie I would have been in.

Next: Wonder how your U.S. House representative is voting? Wonder what he or she is voting on? Roll call votes in the U.S. House can be found here. On each line, click on the number at the outermost left to bring up the roll call for the bill cited on that line. Be sure, though, that you understand the question the reps were voting on. That can be tricky.

Big Apple got you down? Try MetroNap

by Ben Cunningham

MetroNap is a self contained pod for short naps and relaxation. They currently have locations in New York in the Empire State Bldg and Vancover, BC. Says you can own your own MetroNap franchise. Maybe make some bucks off those Country Music tourists?

Is this a bribe?

by Ben Cunningham

Is this a bribe? Johnson and Johnson is trying to buy Guidant and as part of the deal they are offering huge payments to Guidant executives.

"The latest filing also notes that 11 Guidant executives will receive $17.24 million in "cash severance", a substantial change from the $13 million nine executives were set to receive based on previous filings."

This is from a great blog written by investor Michelle Leder, www.footnoted.org. She does the nitty griity work that most investors don't have the time and inclination to do, reading obscure SEC filings. But....back to the main question: Is this a bribe?

Downtown YMCA must serve children

by Ben Cunningham

This AP article details the lawsuit against the Mid TN YMCA by private health clubs. Social engineering is such a messy business. Too darn many unintended consequences. The last sentence below is interesting. "people of all...incomes" sounds pretty inclusive. How could you exclude anyone?

"The YMCA of Middle Tennessee must prove that children are allowed to use its Uptown Nashville YMCA facility to maintain its tax-exempt status, a state appeals court has ruled.

A law passed by the state Legislature in 2000 clarified that "family wellness centers" are exempt from property taxes.

To qualify under that law, an organization must comply with a number of conditions, including having as its purpose "the provision of programs promoting physical, mental and spiritual health on a holistic basis without emphasizing one over another."

The organization must also provide all programs and services to people of all ages, incomes and abilities."

Ethics Lapse

Trent Seibert has another big story in today's Tennessean: Special ethics panel has never met; Three-year lull calls into question Bredesen's commitment, some say. Don't miss it.

Fairness Update

I have updated this post by publishing a series of emails exchanged between myself and Nashville is Talking blogger Brittney Gilbert regarding the issue of whether blogs published by the mainstream media have an obligation to be fair.

In the Key of Locke

By Donna Locke
Somehow in all the Christmas confusion and most recent blogger dust-up, my planned post about the Christmas hush got lost. I hope you didn't miss the hush. I really needed it this year.

The holiday season concludes a year of changes on global and local fronts: good, bad, sad, sometimes all at once. As the country song says, "The only thing that stays the same is, everything changes."

In a few weeks, my mother, my brother, and I may testify at a parole hearing in an attempt to prevent the release from prison of the man who brutally, senselessly murdered my sister 21 years ago. This killer was sentenced to life in prison and, at the time here in Tennessee, wasn't supposed to be considered for parole until he had served 30 years of his sentence. Yet he has a continuously approaching "parole eligibility" date. Today, his eligibility date is Feb. 18, 2006, but the date will change, moving closer. If he's granted a hearing, we will be there. Our victim's statements have been on file for years. I hope our protests will be enough. They could save someone's life.

Someday I will tell my sister's story, but it will not be on this blog. I tried to tell her story in my/her local newspaper, The Daily Herald in Columbia, but the paper's current editor wanted the story told a certain way, his way, and this is a story I will tell, and that deserves to be told, in my way only.

If we live long enough, our minds make an annual skip to familiar tracks in an oft-played record. I know you know what I mean. The holiday season can be a tough time emotionally. Many, maybe most, of us have wishes that don't jibe with what is. We think about what used to be, what could have been, what should have been. We think about the empty chairs at the table, and wish for the companionship of people long gone or never present.

A special moment comes on or just before December 25 every year. A moment of stillness I call the Christmas hush. You have to clear your mind and listen for it, or you might miss it. The hush is best heard and experienced outdoors and at night, but you might hear it anywhere anytime. A quiet moment of stasis between an ending and a beginning. A seed moment ripe with possibilities. The hush will seem to be outside you - but then you'll realize it's within as well. In that moment, I hope you find - or have found - meaning, peace, and hope.

December 26, 2005

New auto assembly plant for Tennessee?

by Ben Cunningham
A new KIA auto assembly plant for Tennessee? Could be. Rest assured that the Tennessee Department of Economic Development is trying to hand over a very large pile of your taxpayer money to get this deal. It will probably dwarf the $194 million for Nissan.

Here is a thought experiment: Most studies indicate that 80% of new jobs are created by small businesses. What if we reduced Tennessee business taxes for ALL Tennessee businesses by an amount equivalent to the Nissan incentives plus the gargantuan giveaway that is probably being promised to KIA. Would we have more net new employment and a more diversified, stable economy?

Bigger Govt = Less Happiness

by Ben Cunningham

Continuing on the implications of government growth line of thought, I highly recommend Joel Miller's new book, Size Matters, subtitled How Big Government puts the squeeze on America's Families, Finances, and Freedom. He has an excellent discussion on the profound implications of the phrase "pursuit of happiness." The typically trivial interpretation of this phrase entirely misses the point. Pursuit of happiness implies a wide spectrum of freedom to perfect ourselves to be everything we wish to be. It is this presumption of perfectability that idealogically separates the women from the girls when it comes to those who believe in equal opportunity vs equal results.

And coincidentally, here is a recently published research paper which concludes "Our results show that life satisfaction decreases with higher government spending."

The Presumption

By Nathan Moore

Ben Cunningham, who is eminently more qualified than yours truly to address taxation issues, has just posted about the desire to extend taxation to business software not otherwise taxed - an uber personalty tax, if you will. The State Board of Equalization, which sounds like it came right out of Atlas Shrugged, is attempting to determine just how long tax assessor tentacles can reach. The standard ought to be "should reach", but that goes to the underlying presumption that Ben discussed. The presumption that taxation comes first and personal freedom last is bothersome. That presumption should irk everyone, though I have a feeling that those enamoured with socialism, think corporations are evil, believe that Bush stole two elections, etc., probably don't mind so much.

What's worse is that this presumption strikes at the heart of one of Tennessee's greatest assets. We are a low tax state, and should be intent on keeping it that way. The last demographic any bureaucrat needs to try to tax is business. The franchise and excise taxes here are enough. Let's not add another economic growth sucker to the mix.

Government always needs MORE?

by Ben Cunningham

The post below about private contractors being so much more effective and efficient than efforts supervised by the government would, I believe, not surprise most citizens.

However, when government bureacrats make a decision about revenue they virtually always assume that government needs more money. How odd when you think about it. The article HERE, cited in several TN blogs today, is about the State Equalization Board recommending that business software be taxed. Apparently some counties are taxing business software and others are not. Sooooooo.....what is the normal logic? Let them all tax business software to be consistent. Why not let them all exempt business software to be consistent?

The underlying assumption is that government is 1- always starved for money and 2- Can use the money more efficiently than the private sector. How VERY odd.

"Something is very wrong here"

by Ben Cunningham

NYTimes article comparing response of private vs public hurricane clean up efforts:

"Something is very wrong here," said Frank Leach, a Jackson County supervisor. "Our federal government is paying an extraordinary amount of money for services that are not being performed adequately."

The same appeared to hold true in Louisiana: The cleanup from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita was 45 percent finished in jurisdictions that called in the corps, and nearly 70 percent complete in communities that employed private contractors, state records showed. The imbalance remained even when New Orleans, where the cleanup has been particularly complex and slow, was removed from the tally. Across the Gulf Coast, the cleanup was, on average, about 60 percent done, records showed.

USA gives the most

by Ben Cunningham

This Johns Hopkins Study indicates the US is the most giving country when it comes to cash donations as percent of GDP. A few other nations are more giving of their time. Here is the summary chart (PDF). My guess is that the calculation of volunteer time is a good bit more subjective than monetary donation calculations.

Today's Reading List

Here's a very brief edition of Today's Reading List. Chuck Simmins is hosting a Carnival of Hurricane Relief. ... The Regime Change Iran is up with yet another great round-up of news covering Iran, its Jew-hating terrorist leaders and its drive for nuclear weapons. ... The Tennessee Center for Policy Research has given the Tennessee Education Association its Lump of Coal award for failing students, teachers and taxpayers. ...

Someone Stole the Nun Bun

Someone stole the Nun Bun, and on Christmas Day no less, which seems as if it would be really tempting eternal fate. This seems as a good a blog post as any to mention a large sign my wife saw outside a house in Franklin, TN, a few weeks ago, hung where a Christmas wreath had been hanging. It said: Jesus and Santa Claus know who stole my wreath.

December 25, 2005

Guest Bloggers, Perhaps

I'm traveling Monday-Wednesday of this, the final week of 2005, so I have invited all of my recent guest bloggers - Nathan Moore, Matt White, Rob Huddleston, Ben Cunningham, Adam Groves, Donna Locke and U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn to post here if they wish. It's short notice and a holiday week for many, so I don' t know if they'll be posting much, but I know I won't be.

December 22, 2005

Should MSM Bloggers Be Fair?

Interesting debate underway over at Nashville Is Talking, here, on whether a salaried blogger working for a news organization has an obligation to at least try to appear fair - and what they're risking if they don't.

UPDATE: The NIT blogger's decision to close comments on the controversial post seems rather ironic, and her reaction to being criticized on this matter seems rather thin-skinned - as you'll see from the email exchange when I get around to posting it. The question remains: Should an MSM-run blog publish press releases from political parties verbatim as if they are news articles?

UPDATE: Comments to this blog are held as drafts by the publishing software's anti-spam filters until I log in and approve the non-spam comments. As I am traveling Saturday and will most likely be unable to log in until evening, new comments to this and other posts won't appear on the blog until tomorrow night.

UPDATE 12/27: Here is a series of emails between myself and NIT blogger Brittney Gilbert, all from Dec. 24, regarding this issue. The first email below is actually my response to her final comment on the blog post before she closed it to comments.

Me to Brittney:

Brittney,
You attacked me, then closed comments so I can't respond? How lame. You implied some things that are false and deserve to be corrected. You wrote:

This is the last comment I will leave and then I'm closing the comments on this thread. It took up far too much of my time and energy yesterday, and I won't have time today to keep up with it today.

To quote Brad Paisely, "Wah wah wah wah wah." You're the only salaried blogger in Nashville. You're supposed to spend time conversing with the blogosphere, not whining about it taking up to much of your time.

If you have a problem with the way I do my job, Bill Hobbs, that's fine. Criticize away. But don't for a minute pretend that you have WKRN and NIT's best interest at heart. You're embarrassed by this press release, and you're sorry that a high traffic site like NIT clued people in to Harwell's "bookkeeping errors."

No, I'm not embarrassed. The falsehoods and spin in Tuke's letter will be responded to and corrected in due time by Harwell, the TN GOP, and conservative bloggers. And the truth in it will be corroborated and echoed by liberal bloggers. I assure you that I have WKRN's best interest at heart. I was talking to your boss about WKRN engaging the blogosphere long before NIT existed and long before they hired you. I want to see NIT become so much more than it currently is because, well, because I think it currently is so much less than it could be - and as long as it is, it remains vulnerable to being overshadowed by a similar project by another local media outlet that might decide to start one. A good example of an MSM blog done fairly by a salaried blogger who doesn't hide his political bias is No Silence Here (http://blogs.knoxnews.com/knx/silence/), by Knoxville News-Sentinel writer Michael Silence, a Democrat.

In the future, please refrain from presuming to tell me how to write this blog. I've been writing a successful blog for much longer than you, Bill, lest you forget. You did not invent blogging, though the way you laud yourself I'm surprised people don't believe that. I have not changed my style of posting or writing for NIT much at all since I started early this year. When I asked you to guest blog I told you to criticize the site and me if you wanted. You said you thought I was doing a good job. What changed? The Harwell press release piss you off that bad? That is some kind of sad.

Lately you have been doing more cutting and pasting full text of other people's blog posts and of newspaper articles. The former is rude and the latter is a potential copyright problem unless you post it in order to analyze it line by line. Read up on copyright "fair use" doctrine.

I know about your family's close ties to the state GOP (even if you aren't that transparent yourself), and I wouldn't be surprised if you and Harwell are big buds. Big whoop. I've done nothing wrong here, nothing out of the ordinary, and that you chose this post to throw a flag is highly telling. I refuse to allow you to futher portray my work as something that is doing my company a disservice, especially when my job description was made very clear by my employers, who have seemed highly pleased with the outcome thus far

I barely know Harwell. I interviewed her once for a newspaper story a decade or so ago, and spoke to her once on the phone last year, briefly, about blogs and politics. My family's "close ties" to the GOP are through my wife's side of the family - her father in law was head of the TN GOP two decades ago. His Big Republican friends are from that era, and I don't know any of them personally. By the way, he's close friends with John Seigenthaler Sr., too. I guess that means I have close [ties] to liberal Democrats and the Kennedy family. (Wow! I just realized my Bacon number to JFK is 3!)

You say this conversation would have been better served by doing things the way you outlined above. But that isn't how blogging works. I decide, the sole author and editor of this web site. The conversations that arise from posts like this are organic. They arise how they want, in spite of the post's topic.

Yes it does - and this post generated a debate on whether NIT has become shill for the Tennessee Democratic Party, which obviously touched a nerve.

You are free, obviously, to critique what happens here at NIT. It is the nature of blogging. But insisting that you know how to better do my job, and that if the bosses only listened to you they would see better results, is disingenuous. And, quite frankly, mean.

I wasn't intending to be mean, I was raising a serious question: Do MSM-run blogs have an obligation to be fair and non-partisan? Do MSM-run blogs have an obligation to at least question press releases from either party instead of just running them as if they are Holy Writ from the hand of God? You may have started your blog before I did, but I've been in the journalism business since about 1984 and I know a little something about journalistic ethics and what it takes to appear fair. Given that NIT is a corporate MSM blog not your personal blog, I would think WKRN would like it to at least appear fair enough not to offend roughly half the potential audience. It might become a high-traffic blog sooner if it did.

Meanwhile, I think I'll start posting full text of TN GOP press releases just to see if you will post them full text on NIT...
Bill Hobbs.

Brittney Gilbert to me:

If you want to continue to question my job, take it up with my boss. I'm doing what I've been asked. If you think these changes need to take place at NIT, talk to the management. I have no obligation to you.

Accountant Stuart Dungan, a party financial consultant, said most of the problems stemmed from mistakes related to the FEC's electronic filing system. State Republican Chairman Beth Harwell described the problems as "procedural mistakes" that were corrected. "It's not any big deal," she said.

Even the Democrats agreed.

"There's so much complexity in these rules and reports that nobody's going to be perfect," State Democratic Chairman Randy Button said.

Me to Brittney:

Brittney,
If you had acted as something other then a stenographer for the TN Democratic Party, and done some real blogging, you might have come across the following on the substance of Bob Tuke v Beth Harwell: the previous chairman of the TN Democrats said this FEC technical violation was no big thing at the time. Please see Randy Button's comments following Beth's in the Knoxville NS and AP stories below. It's more than a "fog machine"; it's hypocrisy.

Get over it. Seriously.
Merry Christmas.

Proof

Sharon Cobb emails:

I am posting a link to the entire 19 page document called "Back To Medicaid Kick-Off." This is the document where I extracted some pages for my documentary. Even though they are public record, (and clearly MSM was too lazy to go through almost 70 boxes of discovery like I did) I had to wait for my source on them to release me to post them. Someone else involved with TennCare posted the link, so I am free to post it now. I know some of you don't agree with me about TennCare. When you finish this document, try telling me that this isn't an ethics issue. I don't mean TennCare...I mean the Governor blatantly lying to the public. I list my source on my site and the document contains the case number, so if any of you are interested, there is a plethora of emails and documents which show beyond any doubt that Bredesen planned the TennCare cuts long before they became "necessary."

December 21, 2005

Former Clinton Associate A.G.: NSA Spying Legal

John Schmidt, who served under President Clinton from 1994 to 1997 as the associate attorney general of the United States - in other words, not a right-wing neocon from the bowls of Halliburton and the Bushitler regime - had an excellent piece in today's Chicago Tribune regarding the legality of the NSA spying authorized by President Bush. I present it in the extended-entry portion in its entirety.

The Big Media polls on everything, and it's inevitable they will poll on this, if they haven't already. I bet when they release those polls, they will show that a solid majority of Americans are in favor of the spying and are not happy that the New York Times blew a program that stopped terrorist attacks - especially if, in the inevitable hearings, the Bush administration releases specifics of attacks thwarted due to intel gained via the eavesdropping program.

When the American people realize the NYT has made it more difficult for the government to stop terrorist attacks on the homeland, thereby putting American lives at more risk - and when they realize the NYT timed the story to help sell a book, they will be furious at the media, not at the Bush administration, which was doing what it needed to do to protect Americans from terrorist attacks.

President had legal authority to OK taps
By John Schmidt
Published December 21, 2005
Chicago Tribune

President Bush's post- Sept. 11, 2001, authorization to the National Security Agency to carry out electronic surveillance into private phone calls and e-mails is consistent with court decisions and with the positions of the Justice Department under prior presidents.

The president authorized the NSA program in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America. An identifiable group, Al Qaeda, was responsible and believed to be planning future attacks in the United States. Electronic surveillance of communications to or from those who might plausibly be members of or in contact with Al Qaeda was probably the only means of obtaining information about what its members were planning next. No one except the president and the few officials with access to the NSA program can know how valuable such surveillance has been in protecting the nation.

In the Supreme Court's 1972 Keith decision holding that the president does not have inherent authority to order wiretapping without warrants to combat domestic threats, the court said explicitly that it was not questioning the president's authority to take such action in response to threats from abroad.

Four federal courts of appeal subsequently faced the issue squarely and held that the president has inherent authority to authorize wiretapping for foreign intelligence purposes without judicial warrant.

In the most recent judicial statement on the issue, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, composed of three federal appellate court judges, said in 2002 that "All the ... courts to have decided the issue held that the president did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence ... We take for granted that the president does have that authority."

The passage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 1978 did not alter the constitutional situation. That law created the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that can authorize surveillance directed at an "agent of a foreign power," which includes a foreign terrorist group. Thus, Congress put its weight behind the constitutionality of such surveillance in compliance with the law's procedures.

But as the 2002 Court of Review noted, if the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches, "FISA could not encroach on the president's constitutional power."

Every president since FISA's passage has asserted that he retained inherent power to go beyond the act's terms. Under President Clinton, deputy Atty. Gen. Jamie Gorelick testified that "the Department of Justice believes, and the case law supports, that the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes."

FISA contains a provision making it illegal to "engage in electronic surveillance under color of law except as authorized by statute." The term "electronic surveillance" is defined to exclude interception outside the U.S., as done by the NSA, unless there is interception of a communication "sent by or intended to be received by a particular, known United States person" (a U.S. citizen or permanent resident) and the communication is intercepted by "intentionally targeting that United States person." The cryptic descriptions of the NSA program leave unclear whether it involves targeting of identified U.S. citizens. If the surveillance is based upon other kinds of evidence, it would fall outside what a FISA court could authorize and also outside the act's prohibition on electronic surveillance.

The administration has offered the further defense that FISA's reference to surveillance "authorized by statute" is satisfied by congressional passage of the post-Sept. 11 resolution giving the president authority to "use all necessary and appropriate force" to prevent those responsible for Sept. 11 from carrying out further attacks. The administration argues that obtaining intelligence is a necessary and expected component of any military or other use of force to prevent enemy action.

But even if the NSA activity is "electronic surveillance" and the Sept. 11 resolution is not "statutory authorization" within the meaning of FISA, the act still cannot, in the words of the 2002 Court of Review decision, "encroach upon the president's constitutional power."

FISA does not anticipate a post-Sept. 11 situation. What was needed after Sept. 11, according to the president, was surveillance beyond what could be authorized under that kind of individualized case-by-case judgment. It is hard to imagine the Supreme Court second-guessing that presidential judgment.

Should we be afraid of this inherent presidential power? Of course. If surveillance is used only for the purpose of preventing another Sept. 11 type of attack or a similar threat, the harm of interfering with the privacy of people in this country is minimal and the benefit is immense. The danger is that surveillance will not be used solely for that narrow and extraordinary purpose.

But we cannot eliminate the need for extraordinary action in the kind of unforeseen circumstances presented by Sept.11. I do not believe the Constitution allows Congress to take away from the president the inherent authority to act in response to a foreign attack. That inherent power is reason to be careful about who we elect as president, but it is authority we have needed in the past and, in the light of history, could well need again.

-30-

Casey Deserved Better

Cindy Sheehan's book isn't selling very well. Huh. You might have been thinking otherwise judging from the long lines at her book signing.

Sen. Henry to Taxpayers: Shut Up

The Associated Press has taken note of news first reported on blogs - a proposal by state Sen. Doug Henry and the Tennessee Association on Intergovernmental Relations to strip Tennessee citizens of their longstanding right to vote on local and county sales tax increases. The AP reports...

An organization of government officials wants changes in state law to make it easier for Tennessee cities and counties to impose or raise taxes, but some state lawmakers and lobbyist groups are opposed. A majority of the Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations recommended eliminating the current requirement that increases in city or county sales taxes be approved by local voters in a referendum.

The proposal from Senate Finance Committee Chairman Douglas Henry, D-Nashville, received wide support from city and county officials who are members of TACIR. The group also recommended allowing cities and counties to impose taxes on development and real estate transfers by simple majority vote of county commissions and city councils.

... Henry's proposal to eliminate the present requirement for voter approval of a local sales tax increase prompted less debate. "County commissions and city councils have long been entrusted with setting the property tax rates," Henry said. "I see no reason why they should not be entrusted with the same authority with regard to the local sales tax." Ben Cunningham, a founder of Tennessee Tax Revolt, said the proposal is "a terrible, awful idea because it takes away from citizens a direct say in the process" through a referendum.

I no longer live in his district, though I once did and once voted for Sen. Henry. I wouldn't vote for him again and entrust him with another four years in the state Senate, making decisions that affect the pocketbooks of the very Tennesseans who he clearly wishes to disenfranchise on the issue of local sales and wheel tax increases.

Today's Reading List

The War: Milblogging.com is a new searchable database of nearly 1,000 military blogs.

Politics: The Tennessean thinks it has found the epicenter of the scandal of political corruption in the Bredesen administration. The headline on today's front page: Deputy gov. pulled strings in hushed-up harassment case. The subheadline: No records kept on complaint against ex-Bredesen fundraiser; Cooley found him new job. The paper also has a good editorial on the subject. And Bob Krumm has further thoughts.

Media/Blogging: Here's a review of the past year in the blogosphere. Also today, Teen pleads guilty after blog confession. ... And Rex Hammock at RexBlog reports that Dan Gillmor is putting together a nonprofit Center for Citizen Media. The goals are to study, encourage and help enable the emergent grassroots media sphere, with a major focus on citizen journalism. The new center is associated with UC, Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard.

Where's the Beef?

Nick & Wendy's, Nashville, TN, December 2005. They both serve beef, but there the similarities end.

Anti-Walmart Campaign Caught in Lies and Race-Baiting

WakeUpWalMart.com, the Big Labor-funded attack on Wal-Mart, has been caught in lies and race-baiting. Joel Mowbray has the details. This isn't the first time I've noticed anti-Wal-Mart crusaders peddling misinformation. The truth, however, is that Wal-Mart is good for America's poor - better, even, than the federal government's welfare program.

Quotable

"The Department of Justice believes, and the case law supports, that the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes, and that the President may, as has been done, delegate this authority to the Attorney General." - Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee, July 14, 1994. - Via Mike's America, which points out that President' Bush's decision to have the NSA eavesdrop on phone calls between Al Qaeda terrorists and their friends in the U.S. saved the Brooklyn Bridge - and countless New York commuters - from destruction.

Still unanswered: Will a special prosecutor be appointed to investigate just who leaked the information about the NSA program to the New York Times, so that person can be prosecuted for their crime, which undermined national security, aided our terrorist enemy and put American lives at risk?

December 20, 2005

How the Dodo Became Extinct

Cartoon by LA Times editorial cartoonist Mike Ramirez, via The Discerning Texan

Invasion?

Arnold Garcia Jr., the editorial page editor of the Austin, Texas, American-Statesman, criticizes proposals for building a wall along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border to stop illegal immigration, in a column in which he, probably unintentionally, likens illegal immigration to a hostile invasion.

Pardon my skepticism that a scheme to build a fence along the border will be a great Christmas gift for citizens. You can ask the Chinese how well their Great Wall worked. You can ask the French about the efficacy of the Maginot Line. And you might even ask the Germans about the Atlantic Wall and the Siegfried Line.

Today's Reading List

The War: Amir Taheri analyzes our progress in Iraq.

Since March 2003 the US and its allies have achieved all their political objectives - starting with regime change, the dismantling of the Baathist military and security machine, the capture of most Baathist leaders, the writing and approval of a new constitution, a series of elections and, within the next few weeks, the formation of a newly elected government in Baghdad.

Mike Stokely didn't die for a just cause, he died for a lot of just causes, including the ones I set out above. I wish I were fit to tie his shoe laces but I am fortunate enough to have a son who believed in God, family, duty, honor and country and who certainly turned out to be the better of the two of us.

Politics: Some Tennessee legislators urge Deputy Gov. Dave Cooley, implicated in the promotions-for-political contributions scandal at the Tennessee Highway Patrol, to resign. Story in The Tennessean. Meanwhile, Cooley's boss has called the legislature into a special session to consider new "ethics reform" legislation. The story provides information about bipartisan ethics reform legislation that the legislature will consider, and quotes Nashville blogger Blake Wylie:

Even when the bipartisan bill was signed off on by the leaders of both parties last month, some legislators - and citizens who watch the legislature - were not satisfied. "From what I saw that the ethics panel recommended, this bill is so full of loopholes, it might as well have been written on Swiss cheese," said Blake Wylie, who runs a blog on his Web site NashvilleFiles.com, and who monitored the debates last month that led to the bipartisan ethics bill. "I see nothing that's going to change the business as usual going on at the state Capitol."

One loophole includes exceptions on lobbyists' wining and dining lawmakers. Another is the lack of a ban on lawmakers' voting on legislation that could benefit their own businesses.

The Center for Public Integrity regularly ranks Tennessee's legislature low on the integrity scale for a variety of reasons, including the high number of its members who sit on committees that regulate their own businesses or professions, a blatant conflict-of-interest that is ripe for abuse and corruption.

Three years ago, I wrote an op-ed, published in December 2002 in the Memphis Commercial Appeal and in January 2003 in The Tennessean about how the low-trust factor affected the debate over the proposed state income tax. It's no longer online, but you can read The Tennessean version here PDF file, and the Memphis version here thanks to the miracle of blogging.

UPDATE: Bob Krumm reminds us of the real reason the governor delayed a special session on ethics reform for eight months after a pack of lawmakers were arrested for accepting cash bribes from lobbyists.

More Politics: Adam Groves is keeping watch on the investigation into vote fraud that affected a special state Senate election in Memphis, and explores why retired former U.S. Rep. Harold Ford Sr. is meddling in the investigation.

December 18, 2005

Photoblogging in Texas

Road construction, Austin, Texas.

I'm currently in Austin, Texas. I haven't had much time for photography, but I've managed to take a few. This is one of the overpasses of a new turnpike under construction high above I-35 north of Austin. Also posted at Flickr, along with three other Austin-area photos.

Today's Reading List

Politics: The latest Tennessean story on the Tennessee Highway Patrol political patronage scandal underlines the assertion Friday on a Nashville radio show by Tennessee Finance & Administration Commissioner David Goetz that the governor was aware of but ignored the political corruption and cronyism inside the THP before it was uncovered by investigative reporters at The Tennessean. According to the story in today's paper, the governor's right-hand man wasn't ignoring the patronage scandal - he was "closely involved" in the cronyism. The former head of the THP, forced to resign last week, says Deputy Gov. Dave Cooley oversaw THP's promotions process.

A months-long investigation by The Tennessean has shown that two-thirds of THP officers proposed for promotions under Bredesen had made campaign donations to Bredesen or had relatives or patrons who did. Of those, half were recommended over troopers with better scores on impartial exams.

December 17, 2005

Sen. Henry Pushes Elimination of Referendum on Local Sales Tax Increases

Here's some good news for potential state Senate candidate Bob Krumm involving the current occupant of the Senate seat that Krumm is eyeing. State Sen. Douglas Henry - who last March was backing legislation that would strip Tennesseans of their right to vote on proposed increases in their county "wheel tax" (car tag fees) and make it easier for county commissions to raise wheel taxes - is at it again. According to the Dec. 19 issue of the weekly Tennessee Journal political newsletter, Henry now is backing a proposal to eliminate the referendum requirement for the local option sales tax.

The Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations recommended last week that the state legislature enact general legislation empowering local governments to impose taxes on development. Currently, private acts of the legislature are necessary for cities and counties to establish such levies. ... City and county members of TACIR in the main strongly favored general enabling legislation, arguing it was particularly needed in fast-growing counties strapped by the cost of building and operating new schools. ... The discussion led Henry to observe that not all the taxes cited as already available can be implemented solely by local governing bodies. The local option sales tax, he noted, requires approval by voters in a referendum. On his motion, the commission voted to recommend that the legislature remove the referendum requirement. That will be a contentious proposition, since Republicans are pushing a Taxpayer Bill of Rights that is favorable to referendums on tax questions.

He's just handed Krumm a very big hammer.

UPDATE: Nathan Moore tries to explain why Henry has come out against the right of people to vote on local sales tax increases.

UPDATE: Gary Sellers emails:

My name is Gary Sellers and I live in Knox County in East Tennessee. In 2004, I lead the wheel tax fight here against Mayor Mike Ragsdale that garnered enough signatures on a petition drive to force a referendum vote. When Mayor Ragsdale realized that the petition drive was going to be successful, he had County Commission to pass an increase in the property tax should the wheel tax be defeated. The voters of Knox County were not given the opportunity to decide if they felt a tax increase was warranted, they were only able to choose which tax to pay. The changes proposed by Senator Henry only confirm a trend that seems to be sweeping across the state. Local governments want complete control of taxes increases. This is very disturbing to me and should be to any conservative.

Quadruple Bogey

The Chattanooga Times Free Press has an interesting story today about the state of Tennessee's government-owned unprofitable golf courses, following up on a recently released Tennessee Center for Policy Research study that found that six of the eight state-owned courses are losing money even though state law requires the Department of Environment and Conversation to operate them at a break-even or profitable level. In all, the state lost more than $436,000 on the golf courses last fiscal year. (I mentioned the TCPR study here.)

Now we learn that the problem is about to get a lot worse. That's because the state assumed control of four more golf courses, the Bear Trace courses designed by Jack Nicklaus, on Dec. 1. The four Bear Trace courses previously were managed by Redstone Golf Management, a Houston company, which lost $3.7 million on them in 2004.

U.S. House Passes Immigration-Control Bill

By Donna Locke
Tennesseans for Immigration Control and Reform
The U.S. House on Friday passed The Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005 (H.R. 4437) to target illegal hiring, provide for a border fence, stop catch-and-release enforcement policy, mandate federal cooperation with state and local police in immigration-law enforcement, and end the visa lottery, among other measures.

Final vote was 239-182. The bill has 25 amendments and goes to the Senate next for vote.

Here is NumbersUSA's press release about passage of this bill. Excerpt:

NumbersUSA and several other immigration-reform organizations had warned lawmakers this fall that an enforcement bill would have to contain three major provisions to be taken seriously as a response to the rising public outcry from being overwhelmed by unprecedented immigration numbers. The bill provided only one of those, but the other two were added through amendments during floor votes. The three are:

All business must use an electronic system to check if all new hires have the legal right to work.

A security fence and other physical infrastructure must be built along the entire Mexican border.

The federal government has to stop its interior catch and release program in which it tells local governments to release most of the illegal aliens that they catch. H.R. 4437 mandates federal cooperation with local authorities in picking up all illegal aliens they detain.

The Senate will probably try to attach a guest-worker-type amnesty to this bill and will try to torpedo the bill in other ways. Call Sen. Bill Frist's Washington office, 202-224-3344; and Sen. Lamar Alexander's office, 202-224-4944; and tell them what you want them to do. The U.S. Constitution is not just a piece of paper.

December 16, 2005

Today's Reading List

I'm traveling today - in lovely Austin, Texas, again. Baggage heavy, bloggage light. Here's a brief links round-up for you.

The War: Today's editorial in the Tennessean re yesterday's historic election in Iraq - the third historic election in Iraq in the past year - nails the truth of what happened yesterday: "The exact tallies in the Iraq election won't be known for days, but it's fair to say from the flow of millions of people to the polls that democracy won." The paper also implicitly endorses President Bush's stance on troop withdrawal, saying,

The true test of success in Iraq will be measured in this country by how soon Iraq can stand on its own feet and have American troops head home. ... U.S. troops should not be pulled out too soon.

"This is a non-issue for us," said Lydia Lenker, Bredesen's press secretary. "We have Christmas trees in the Capitol. The governor is sending Christmas cards because that's what they are."

Bombshell

Tennessee Commissioner of Finance & Administration David Goetz dropped a bombshell on his boss, the governor, by revealing during a radio interview that the governor knew about but chose to ignore the political corruption and cronyism inside the Tennessee Highway Patrol before it was uncovered by investigative reporters at The Tennessean. The paper even provides a link to the audio from Goetz' interview on Steve Gill's show on WWTN-FM 99.7. Will Goetz decide to pursue new opportunies in the private sector sometime in 2006?

Call, or Cast Your Fate to the Wind

By Donna Locke
Tennesseans for Immigration Control and Reform
U.S. House floor action on H.R. 4437 (The Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005) will continue today, Dec. 16, following Thursday's votes on a number of amendments to the bill. More amendments will be up for debate, and final House vote on the legislation could come on Friday. This important bill is sponsored by Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis.

Go to NumbersUSA's Web site for detailed analyses of the bill and amendments, the list of cosponsors, almost up-to-the-minute reports of votes on the bill and amendments, chances for action, and more. Read the middle of NumbersUSA's home page and follow the links about the bill. Also click on Hot Topics on the right of that page. If text in the middle of the home page changes to another topic when you move your mouse, point your mouse to Hot Topics on the right, and the text about the bill will return and hold steady.

Find and contact your House representative here. Call your rep's Washington office early and often.

NumbersUSA is a Washington lobbyist for the immigration-reduction movement. Tennesseans for Immigration Control and Reform supports the positions NumbersUSA has taken on H.R. 4437 and the proposed amendments. Our positions do not necessarily reflect those of Bill Hobbs.

[Editor's note from the editor of BillHobbs.com: We're pretty much on the same page with respect to chain immigration specifically and illegal immigration overall, though I'm less inclined to reduce legal immigration, especially as respects immigration of highly-educated highly-skilled people, which the U.S. can always use more of.]

December 15, 2005

Why Newspaper Websites Should Be Blogs

Mike Hollihan says, "Score one for modern, web-enabled, open source journalism." I'll let him explain.

Score One for the Home Team

Iraqi voters turned out in force countrywide Thursday to elect a permanent government, and Sunni Iraqis voted in large numbers, chosing ballots over bombs and bullets for the first time in Iraq's history.
President Bush responds.

Is Good News News?

A reporter realizes what too few reporters ever do: that news doesn't have to be bad to be "news."

Reporting and blogging for the Fairbanks, Alaska, Daily News-Miner from Iraq, where she's embedded with the 172nd Stryker Brigade near Mosul, Margaret Friedenauer writes:

If I am truly unbiased, then I need to get used to this one simple fac;; that the untold story, might in fact, be a positive one. It takes a minute to wrap my mind around it, as a news junkie that became a news writer. The great, career-making, breaking news stories usually don't have happy endings; they usually revolve around disturbing news, deceit and downfall. Nasty political doings. Gruesome crimes and murders. Revealing secrets.

But I've come upon something that is none of those. Not this aspect of it. There are politics to this war and controversies and investigations. But there is another side.

Today's Reading List

The War: The LA Weekly has published blogger/journalist Michael Totten's first-person account of meeting and hanging out with Hezbollah in Beirut. Totten emails, "Word has it that these guys are media savvy, that they know how to make a terrific impression on the press. It isn't true. If they were friendly and civilized with me I would have written that they were friendly and civilized. But they weren't, so I wrote this instead. They have no one to blame for this bad press but themselves."

Politics: Gov. Bredesen rules out a gas tax increase this year - for a rather bizarre reason. ... The Tennessee Center for Policy Research probes Tennessee's eight state-owned golf courses, which are supposed to pay for themselves but don't. Says TCPR's Drew Johnson: "They cost taxpayers nearly half a million bucks a year and that doesn't address the issue of exactly why the heck the state is in the golf business."

Also in political news today, The Tennessean says "votes from the grave taint Memphis election," and urges the state Senate be sure that Ophelia Ford actually won a state Senate seat. With felons, dead people and non-residents voting, her 13-vote margin looks increasingly questionable. More on the voting dead of Memphis here.

...The Tennessean also continues its probe of politics and corruption involving the Tennessee Highway Patrol, including this story showing that the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation did a sloppy job in reviewing the criminal histories of THP troopers, and this story revealing that the consulting firm hired by Gov. Phil Bredesen's staff to revamp the THP has previously retained the lobbying services of one of the governor's closest political advisers and confidants. And Tennessean reporter Trent Seibert goes behind the scenes at big fundraisers held by Democrat and Republican state legislators to raise big bucks from lobbyists. Among the legislators at the Democrat fundraiser: state Sen. Ward Crutchfield, who was indicted for taking bribes from ... lobbyists.

December 14, 2005

Digital Camera Carnival

Glenn Reynolds has posted his digital camera carnival. If you're thinking about getting into digital photography, you will benefit by spending a lot of time reading through all the posts he links to.

Wikipedia and the Army of Fact-Checkers

The Tennessean weighs in on the Wikipedia story, warning that websites "that don't monitor accuracy are begging for government regulation." The paper thinks online information sites should "hire an army of fact-checkers." The Wikipedia story interests me for how it compares to blogs. Wikipedia is a completely open-source information site. Anyone can edit anyone else's information. Thus, the information in any specific entry is truly only as credible and accurate as the last person to edit it. Blogs are different. Blogs with any significant readership have "an army of fact-checkers," - their readers and other bloggers. If I post something here that is filled with errors or spin, my readers will correct me in the comments or provide counter-spin. Of course, I can delete those comments - I don't, but I could.

But - and here's the crucial difference between blogs and Wikipedia - some of my readers also have their own blogs, and they can publish their version of the truith and their criticism/analysis/correction of my post on their own blog, where it can't be changed by someone else. The result: while my errant post may still be on the Interweb, their corrective post is as well, and a Google search will turn up both.

That's also how big parts of the blogosphere serve as an army of fact-checkers fact-checking the mainstream media - which, by and large, does not permit readers to post comments or corrections or additional information to the newspapers' website. When newspapers correct errors they do so grudgingly, burying the correction deep in the paper.

When blogs get things wrong, they are corrected right there in the comments to the specific article - and, often, also by other bloggers writing on their own blogs.

All information sources get things wrong from time to time. With Wikipedia, you're gambling that the last editor is the one who got it right. With newspapers, you are relying on the same people who made the error to be willing to correct it. With blogs, it doesn't matter if the blogger got it wrong, or refuses to acknowledge the error because the blogosphere is an army of fact-checkers - readers and bloggers - who point out each others' errors and correct them.

If a newspaper - say, The Tennessean - were to start publishing their stories online in blog format, complete with a reader-comment function, and to have their reporters file story updates online in blog fashion and require their reporters to monitor the comments and interact with readers, and to use their blogs as news-gathering tools, I suspect it would be an eye-opening and industry-altering experience for that newspaper.

And it would be a good change. After all, newspaper writers and editors are not all-knowing and infallible about any subject. Collectively, their readers know more than they do. It's time - it's past time - for newspapers to acknowledge that reality, and use modern tools like blogs to access and distribute that knowledge.

Today's Reading List

The War Iran's former terrorist-turned president says the Holocaust didn't happen.

Politics: Tennessee's governor hires an outside firm to study the scandal-plagued Tennessee Highway Patrol and suggest reforms. Adam Groves, noting that the paper reported that the firm's senior officer in Nashville has given large amounts of money to the governor's political campaigns, comments, "Isn't it ironic that the group charged with investigating whether or not favoritism within the Tennessee Department of Safety was a result political contributions may have gotten the deal because of political contributions." Groves has more on the ethical scandals plaguing Tennessee's governor here.

Meanwhile, the Nashville City Paper reports that "Millions of dollars in incentives states use to lure companies, such as Tennessee did for Nissan, may be outlawed depending on a U.S. Supreme Court decision expected next year." That would be a bad decision and it's one I suspect the Supreme Court won't make.

Blogging state Rep. Stacey Campfield has some sensible suggestions for state campaign finance reform.

Media: Terry Heaton explains "why people who cling to mass media concepts are hiding their heads in the sand," - and also explains why mid-career journalists ought to be terrified for the future of their careers.

December 13, 2005

Digital Camera Advice