May 16, 2008

Tennessee Democrat Party: Out of Touch

The Tennessee Democrat Party today issued a press release slamming the Tennessee Republican Party for releasing a web video contrasting remarks by Michelle Obama, wife of likely Dem presidential nominee Barack Obama, in which she said she had not until recently been proud of her country. Mrs. Obama delivered the scripted comments in two separate campaign appearances on behalf of her husband.

Judging from the results of an online poll at AOL, the TDP is out of step with the views of the American people. Well, at least with the views of the AOL audience - which, incidentally, is known to skew heavily to the Left.

You can view the ad at www.youtube.org/tennesseegop, and read more about the Tennessee Democrat Party's temper tantrum here.

A Common Phrase ...

...defined.

"If the Shoe Fits, He's Gonna Have to Wear It."

Fred Thompson takes on Barack Obama's whining about suggestions by President Bush that Obama's promise to negotiate without pre-conditions with the terrorist leader of Iran, the leading sponsor of terrorism in the world today, amounts to appeasement. The clip is from Fox New's morning program Fox and Friends.

The shoe does fit, by the way.

Accentuate the Positive

AllahPundit at HotAir.com comments on the video Proud.

Update: The pro-Hillary Clinton blog No Quarter has some further thoughts about Michelle Obama, video and the campaign. Read the comments there and - remembering that you're on a pro-Hillary blog reading the comments of numerous Democrats - try to picture them voting for Barack in November if Hillary doesn't get the party's nod.

"Ordinary People are Not His Big Interest"

Tim Chavez tears into Gov. Phil Bredesen for his insensitivity to the plight of the common man. You might not agree with every specific policy direction Chavez points to, but when he writes of Bredesen that "ordinary people are not his big interest," it's impossible to argue with him. Bredesen, after all, has put a fancy ballroom for the state's elites ahead of the healthcare needs of 6,000 mentally disabled children.

Liberals Win One in the Push for Gay Marriage

In 2000, California voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 22, which defined marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman. Then, in 2004, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom began issuing more than 4,000 marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Those marriages were later voided, sparking a legal fight that ended yesterday when the California Supreme Court ruled Prop 22 violated the state constitution.

Here in Tennessee, the law defining marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman was passed by voters - again, overwhelmingly - as an amendment to the state constitution, not as a statue a la California's Prop 22, so by definition it is constitutional and can not be overturned by the state Supreme Court.

But that doesn't mean there aren't liberals in Tennessee would very much like to legalize gay marriage. State Rep. Sherry Jones, D-Nashville, told The Tennessean, "I don't think the people in this state have come around that far yet.

Tennessee's consititution not only doesn't recognize gay marriage, it explicitly rejects same-sex marriages from other states or countries, calling them "void and unenforceable in this state." Twenty-six other states have similar laws.

Who's Sayin' What?

New York Daily News columnist Michael Goodwin explores the reasons why Middle East terror thugs like Barack Obama.

What Happened, Bunker Boy?

Serr8d has some thoughts on Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen's management of state finances.

May 15, 2008

Proud

From the moment I was old enough to understand the concept of a country, of nationhood and of America, I have always been proud of my country. I have not always agreed with everything my country's government - local, state or federal - has done, but I have never not been proud of my country.

My pride in my country does not rest on a certain candidate or party. being ahead in the polls or drawing large crowds, or winning elections. I was proud of my country when the inept Jimmy Carter occupied the White House and shredded the country's economy, military and spirit while retreating around the world in the face of expanionist Soviet communism. I was equally proud of my country when Ronald Reagan saved it from economic ruin, rebuilt the military, revived the American spirit and faced down Soviet communism, leading to the collapse of the Soviet Union a few years after he left office.

Why? Because America has always been more than a country, more than a nation, more than a territory with borders and a flag. America is an idea, that all people are created equal and deserve to live in freeom. It is the only country on Earth built on that foundation. Has it always lived up perfectly to those ideals? No. Will it in the future? No. Because while the American ideal is great, America is made up of people, and people make mistakes and do things they shouldn't do.

I do not have to look out on the campaign trail and see large crowds cheering for my favorite candidate in order to be proud of my country.

A Little More Salsa

Former Tennessean columnist Tim Chavez, who now blogs at Political Salsa, emailed this morning. And asked that I put it as a comment to this post. I decided to do better than bury it below a three-day-old post and share it with you here.

Bill,

I saw your note about my blog, and it reminded me of something I have failed to do. I want to thank you for comments you made on a blog site defending me and my work at one of the lowest points in my wife -- when The Tennessean dumped me from my columnist job deep into my cancer fight. Some folks were trashing me and saying good riddance. You noted that we probably agreed on issues only half the time, but that no one deserved what happened to me.

I want to publicly thank you for those kind words. I will try and remain open to Republicans and their thoughts on issues and give Sen. McCain a fair hearing. I still write political columns for the Hispanic press in this country.

You're right. I do seem to lean more Democrat these days. But I try to not do it as a mouthpiece for any party, just by how I feel about the issues at hand. I never claimed to be a conservative. That would be insulting to conservatives, that their political identity can be put on and taken off like a cheap hat. I did claim to be open to conservative ideas, and that was controversial enough. What The Tennessean did with what I wrote was beyond my control.

I made these statements of openness following the Bush administration's intervention to stop the wrongs committed by the Metro school system in the education of Hispanic and immigrant children. Clinton and Gore officials failed to act, even though I had contacted them about it.

Because of my personal experiences with the Metro Schools outrage, I supported President Bush's No Child Left Behind reforms. A good education provides greater good than a host of social programs. I do believe that No Child could be the greatest piece of civil rights legislation of our generation. First, however, we must discover how far behind some children are. That can only be done through testing that brings the education of, say for instance, Hispanic children out of bureaucratic anecdote into hard numbers. Then, local officials must make the decision on the allotment of resources to close the gap. They can either build new sports stadia or fund the adequate education of all children.

I would have put these comments on your blog site, but I am so technologically challenged that I didn't know what to put in the box for one's URL. With all the associated health trouble I've had with my cancer, I thought it was something about my prostate.

If it is possible, please add this e-mail to your blog comments section.

Thanks,
Tim Chavez

May 14, 2008

Civil Rights Progress South of the Border

Instapundit notes some civil rights progress in Georgia: Georgians with handgun carry permits will be able to carry their concealed guns on public transportation, in restaurants that serve alcohol and in state parks under legislation signed by Gov. Sonny Perdue today.

Similar legislation in the Tennessee was killed in the state House a few weeks ago. The fingerprints on the murder weapon belonged to House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh. Accomplices are all the allegedly pro-gun rights Democrats who elected him Speaker.

Elected Not Selected

An email from David Fowler explains the Judicial Selection Commission issue:

Tennessee's Constitution (Article VI, Section 3) provides: "The Judges of the Supreme Court shall be elected by the qualified voters of the State."

So, why are our Supreme Court Justices appointed by the Governor from a slate of names provided by a group of appointed citizens dominated by representatives of special interest lawyer organizations?

Good question!

The reason is that in 1994, in conflict with the plain language of the constitution, the legislature passed a law creating this system of appointment where the people only have the right to vote to retain or not retain those who have been appointed.

But, yesterday (May 13th) the Tennessee State Senate's Government Operations Committee refused to pass a bill that would have continued this unconstitutional system. In doing so showing respect for the plain language of the constitution and respect for the rights and privileges of the people to be in control of the Judiciary that they created.

But that is not the end of the issue. To learn more about what you can do, go to our Grassroots Action Center. You will find an easy and convenient way to let legislators know what you think about this issue.

And, according to a good source of mine, many judges, trial lawyers, and the Tennessee Bar Association have been heavily lobbying legislators to retain the current system. You can understand why - they fear having to actually run for the job. Most appellate judges have never, ever actually run for office. They were appointed to the bench. Then they faced "retention votes" ever since being appointed. The only campaign they have ever run was to lobby the Judicial Selection Commission to put them on the list of three names submitted to the governor.

The Bar Association and the Trial Lawyers like having control of the Judicial Selection Commission; they don't want voters involved. Ironic, isn't it, that lawyers and judges want to ignore the clear language of the Tennessee constitution.

Hey, you know who else wants to continue letting lawyers and politicians pick the judges? The Tennessee Democratic Party. Just ask Mike.

That puts the Tennessee Democratic Party at odds with 94 percent of the Tennessee electorate.

In a state-wide poll conducted by the polling company™, on February 27th of this year, only 6 percent of Tennesseans said they thought lawyers should have the most input on the selection of judges.

May 13, 2008

Naifeh's Democrats Still Trying to Withhold Your Constitutional Right to Elect Your State Judges

State Rep. Stacey Campfield reports that the House has voted to extend Tennessee's Judicial Selection Commission, even though the state Senate is poised to let the Commission die, which would restore to Tennessee voters their constitutional right to elect their appellate-level judges.

The House voted 64-34 for the legislation, which would extend the Commission and Tennessee's "retention election" system for picking judges for another four years. I haven't seen the roll call vote tally yet, but you can bet that Democrats lined up in favor of continuing to let a commission dominated by lawyers - rather than voters - pick your judges.

Some Democrats were claiming that letting the people elect judges - as the state constitution actually requires - would hurt children. Apparently there are Democrats who believe democracy is bad for children.

Campfield also has a second post with an absolutely on-target statement by state Rep. Mike Bell slamming House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh for complaining that the debate over the Judicial Selection Commission had become partisan.

Associated Press reporters Lucas Johnson and Eric Schelzig detail the dispute between House and Senate leaders over proposed reforms to the Commission - Naifeh wants no changes, Senate Speaker and Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey wants changes that lessen the dominance of lawyers on the commission - and also the dispute between Naifeh and Bredesen on whether the Commission's meetings should be open or closed.

Also from that AP article:

Ramsey said there's support among Republicans and the public for directly electing judges instead of using the current system.

Update: Tom Humphrey reports that the demise of legislation to extend the Judicial Selection Commission also puts 53 other state agencies, boards and commissions into a one-year "wind down" period. That means they will "sunset" - go out of business - at the end of June 2009 unless the legislature moves to extend them. I'd expect they'll all get extended, though now that they have not been automatically extended, the public just might see real discussion over whether each and every one of them is necessary.

I can think of more than a few state agencies, commissions, boards and departments that I wouldn't mind seeing go away! Incidentally, unless something changes between now and the end of session, which appears unlikely, the state Department of Revenue will go into "wind down" on July 1.

A Big Red Flag

The American Courthouse blog has a good look at the politics that infests Tennessee's supposedly non-political Judicial Selection process, and how a lawyer-dominated state House subcommittee killed even a modest proposal to make the Judicial Selection Commission meetings open to the public rather than the current process of secret meetings. Writes Dan Pero: "When lawyers desperately fight to protect other lawyers from the scrutiny of ordinary citizens, that’s a big red flag."

More here and a round-up of past AH posts on Tennessee's judicial selection process here.

What's It Like To Have A Big Pile of Government Waste Named After You, Bob?

Ben Cunningham writes elequently about the waste-of-tax-dollars known as the Clement Landport. Bob Clement spent millions of tax dollars building a mass transit hub that was unwanted, unnecessary and poorly planned, not to mention a complete waste of time, money, land and effort.

I worked at Nashville Business Journal for the first three years of the 1990s, roughly coinciding with Clement's final few years in Congress, when he was pushing for the landport funding.

Al Gore hadn't created the Internet yet, so we still got press releases via fax. The fax machine was regulary stuffed with new releases from Clement's congressional office touting this project or that project for which he had secured federal funds. Until election season rolled around. Then, suddenly, we started getting faxes from Bob claiming Bob was a fiscal conservative who sought to restrain government spending.

The truth is, Clement was a congressional pork pig, and it is only fitting that the landport is named after the ex-Congressman,

If Bob Clement ever runs again for any office above the level of constable, the stupidity that is the Clement Landport is a good enough reason to vote against him.

Bob, naturally, still thinks the Clement Landport was a good idea.

"The judges of the Supreme Court shall be elected by the qualified voters of the state." *

Tennesseans could regain their constitutional right to elect their state judges as early as the 2010 election, though you can be sure the next 12 months will be filled with efforts by the legal establishment and the liberal side of the political establishment to continue Tennessee's most-likely unconstitutional Judicial Selection Commission process.

*The headline of this post is a direct quote from the Tennessee Constitution.

The Trojan Horse Bill

The non-partisan Tennessee Center for Policy Research has condemned the Bredesen administration's $30 million worth of proposed tax increases contained in the administration's Trojan Horse "technical corrections" tax code legislation.

Bredesen's Business Tax Increase Dead on Arrival

I'm informed by a good source at the Tennessee legislature that the Bredesen administration's plan to hit family-owned real estate limited liability companies with $15 million in new taxes is likely dead. The provision has heavy bipartisan opposition.

Criminally Insane

Totalitarianism will come to the United States via the efforts of government social workers like these in California. The story's from February but I just ran across it via the Sam Adams Alliance website.

The story got me thinking about the state of things in Tennessee and I realized something very, very chilling: It's not a very far leap to go from a state agency (like the Tennessee Department of Education) declaring home-school and church-related school diplomas to be "worthless" to a state agency (like, say, the Tennessee Department of Human Services) extrapolating from that declaration - which is now Department of Education policy - that children in home schools and church-related schools are victims of neglect or abuse at the hands of their parents, and then removing those children from their parents' care in order to force them into the public school system or pre-K.

We're not there yet, but we'll move one step closer if state Rep. Mike Bell's legislation to force the Department of Education to recognize home-school and church-related-school diplomas as equal to public and private school diplomas is not passed this session. And time is winding down.

Think I'm crazy? Well, a few years ago if someone had predicted to you the events in the article linked above you've have thought they were crazy too.

The first goal of a bureaucracy is self-preservation of the bureaucracy, and the best tools to achieve that goal are expanding the size and scope of the bureaucracy and extending its reach further and further into more and more people's lives.

May 12, 2008

Bredesen's Budget Speech

Gov. Bredesen spoke about the state budget today. You can read the prepared text here (PDF file).

Tom Humphrey points out that while Bredesen seeks to cut $80 million out of a planned $100 million expansion of TennCare to cover thousands of medically needy Tennesseans, he didn't let the budget woes preclude him from proposing to stash $100 million in an "economic development contingency fund."

Bredesen mentioned the fund in the speech, though it isn't in the speech as prepared.

What's the fund for? I'm guessing it is to pay for whatever incentives the governor and his economic development department are already negotiating to give Volkswagen to build a new assembly plant in Tennessee. That seems to be pretty much an open secret, though Volkswagen has not even decided whether it will or won't build a plant in the United States. Three sites in or near Tennessee are under considering - in Clarksville, Chattanooga, and northern Alabama, any of which would be good for Tennessee's economy and Tennessee workers. VW is also said to be looking at a Michigan site, though few believe VW will pick a site that would have to be staffed by union labor.

John Rodgers at the City Paper also reports on the $100 million economic development fund.

As for the rest of Bredesen's proposals, it's worth remembering that much of what he is cutting - other than the plan to reduce the state workforce by 2,000 employees via buyouts - represents cutting planned increases. Next year's budget likely will be larger, and cost Tennessee taxpayers, more than this year's budget.

Gov. Bredesen has grown the state budget by about $1.5 billion a year since taking office - his predecessor grew it by about $1 billion a year.

Update: The Tennessean story on the $100 million economic development fund notes that "Tennessee has also pledged $35 million in training funds to the General Motors plant in Spring Hill this year to help prepare the work force there to build a new Chevrolet Traverse crossover utility vehicle."

The story suggests Tennessee could offer similar funding to Volkswagen. In April, VW announced that its first-quarter net profit rose by more than 25 percent globally on stronger sales, and the predicted a substantial increase in demand in 2008, according to this AP report.

VW, Europe's biggest carmaker by sales, earned $1.5 billion in the January-March period, on sales of $43.01 billion globally. VW sold 1.6 million cars in the first quarter of '08, 6.9 percent more than in the first quarter of 2007.

The Bredesen administration people quoted in the various stories point out that economic development is necessary for the long-term, and the state's fiscal woes shouldn't prevent the state from maximizing opportunities that come along. In part, they're right - the state should continue to attract companies, and using taxpayer dollars to build infrastructure to support economic development is good policy. I'm confident the $30 million or so that Tennessee invested to accommodate the Saturn (now GM) plant in Spring Hill in the 1980s has returned billions to the Tennessee economy. The right investments today will help Tennessee's economy grow in the future.

The history of economic development policy in Tennessee is something I know a lot about. I have followed the issue intently ever since the early 1990s when I wrote a series of stories for the Nashville Business Journal exploring how Kentucky was routinely winning battles with Tennessee to land new factories and other economic development plums when sites in both states made the short list. Kentucky was winning thanks to its policy package of well-designed economic development incentives created by the Kentucky legislature after much debate, and with public input - and those incentives were available to any company that met the well-defined criteria, even companies already doing business in the state.

Those stories at first prompted a "no changes - we're doing fine" response from the McWherter administration, but as more and more companies picked Kentucky - and as I and another NBJ reporter got executives at several companies to, on the record, explain why they chose the Bluegrass State over the Volunteer State, the McWherter administration eventually did make some changes to Tennessee's economic development policies and incentives, changes that laid the groundwork for the success Tennessee has enjoyed in economic development for the last decade.

Unfortunately, today the current administration's economic development "policy" - to the extent that it has one - is to open the checkbook and throw cash at out-of-state corporations considering moving to or opening a new facility, in Tennessee, and to do so with a mish-mash of "incentives" rushed into law via tax code "technical corrections" legislation passed in a rush at the end of the legislative session, often with little scrutiny or public debate.

Barack Blames the Help

Jake Tapper notes that Barack Obama loves to blame his staffers for screw-ups, gaffes and questionable actions. From Harry "The Buck Stops Here" Truman to Barry "Blame My Staff" Obama. How the Democrat Party has fallen.

Blogger Chavez

Tim Chavez, the former local columnist for The Tennessean has started a new blog, Political Salsa, and from the early posts it leans pro-Democrat. In his columns when he was at The Tennessean Chavez called things like he saw them, conservative on some issues, liberal on others, but the former regime at The Tennessean pretended he was a "conservative," in order to tamp down complaints that all of the paper's local columnists were liberal.

Governor: Trust Me on Buyouts

Gov. Bredesen says the Legislature will just have to trust him on the details of the employee buyouts he's planning in order to help balance the budget because he won't have details for several weeks, long after the legislature adjourns for the year. Cara Kumari at WSMV blogs the story.

Bredesen Pushes Tax Increases on Business, Tax Breaks For Out-of-State Companies

John Rodgers at Nashville City Paper has a wonderful story today exposing how the Bredesen administration is once again using the innocuously named "technical corrections" legislation dealing with the state's tax code to offer potentially millions of tax dollars as incentives for corporations to move to or expand in Tennessee.

It's reminiscent of how, three years ago, the administration mislead legislators about one provision in the "technical corrections" legislation, in order to trick the legislature into passing a $64 million giveaway to Nissan without understanding that is what they were doing.

The story also reveals that, as the legislature enters its final week of work, the administration still hasn't made the full "technical corrections" legislation available for public inspection. That's a lousy way to make public policy that could cost taxpayers millions or even tens of millions of dollars in the future.

Not content with just passing a "technical correction" to make it legal for the Department of Revenue to collect a tax on digital downloads that the Department has been collecting illegally since Jan. 1, 2008, Bredesen's Revenue Department has packed as much as $30 million worth of tax increases - plus tax incentives worth unknown millions - into this year's "technical corrections" legislation.

From Rodgers' story:

Each year, there is a Department of Revenue-led tax bill, which closes loopholes that businesses find to get around some of the state's taxes. The legislation is commonly referred to as the "technical corrections bill," and while still being formulated as the legislature comes to a close, is expected to raise $27 to $30 million in taxpayer funds.

Besides those loophole closing efforts, the technical corrections bill has become the vehicle for the administration to offer its incentive packages in their efforts to recruit businesses to Tennessee.

The Department of Economic and Community Development and the Department of Revenue team up and place incentives targeted at specific companies.

"These aren't credits or incentives that some consultant comes and says, 'gee, if you enact this, this will be good for the state," Farr told lawmakers recently. "All of these are tied around projects with actual business people that we have talked to."

To be clear, I'm pleased Nissan moved to Tennessee and chose to build its HQ in my town. It will be an asset to the state and its economy, and the state should have worked to make it happen (although the administration's projection that a 750-employee corporate HQ would generate more than 15,000 jobs in the state always seemed more like after-the-fact marketing spin that hard economic number-crunching). What gives me pause is the secretive way this administration crafts incentives targeting a single company - and how the Bredesen administration has given Tennessee the image nationally as a state only too willing to open its wallet and give taxpayers' money away. It would be better if the state had a comprehensive economic incentives policy drafted with public debate rather than the mishmash that the Bredesen administration has created in secret.

Rodgers' story continues

Farr estimated that the Department of Economic and Community Development has about 50 to 100 companies with various degrees of interest in Tennessee. This lengthy, complicated legislation is traditionally brought forward at the end of the legislative session.

Rodgers's story notes the controversial Nissan gift, and also how the Bredesen administration used last year's "technical corrections" legislation to slap a new tax on propane sold for backyard barbecues. He then notes that "in the state's tight fiscal times, some lawmakers are questioning using tax incentives to recruit out-of-state companies to Tennessee while not offering tax credits to companies currently doing business in the state."

In fact, as Rodgers reveals, the Bredesen administration rejected a health care tax credit for small business, proposed by state Sen. Diane Black, R-Gallatin, which would have helped small businesses keep their workforce covered by health insurance. The administration claims the proposed credit would cost the state $9 million, which it can't afford during this year's fiscal crises, but I'm betting they used static analysis to come up with that figure. How much will it cost the state in the future if small businesses dump their health plans and shift those workers to TennCare? And if they don't get on TennCare, how much will it cost the state when those folks show up at hospital emergency rooms when they're sick?

Those are the kinds of policy questions that there's no time to answer because the administration waits until the very last minute to bring its very complex "technical corrections" legislation forward.

So, no health care tax credit for Tennessee small businesses this year. But, as Rodgers also reveals the Bredesen administration has included a provision in the "technical corrections" legislation that would an existing tax break for family-owned limited liability companies investing in real estate. Killing the tax break would hit those companies with about $15 million in new taxes.

Overall the "technical corrections" legislation would raise an estimated $27-$30 million in new revenue.

New tax incentives for out-of-state businesses, more taxes for existing Tennessee businesses.

Those are not "technical corrections." Those are a policy shift and a passel of tax increases, and the administration is trying to get it passed into law by taking advantage of the rush at the end of session with the legislature working to pass the budget and adjourn.

To be clear, it is not bad for Tennessee to structure its tax code to make it advantageous for companies to locate in Tennessee and employ Tennesseans. It is not necessarily bad for Tennessee to offer specific incentives to attract huge economic development projects like an auto assembly plant. What is bad is for such policy shifts to be rushed past the legislature and the public with minimal to no debate.

Update: There is opposition in the state legislature to that $15 million tax hike on certain family-owned limited liability companies. The first reader comment below the Knoxville News Sentinel story is priceless. The answer is, "because the Bredesen administration never proposes a 'technical correction' to the tax code that reduces revenue, only 'corrections' that raise taxes."

Update: Ben Cunningham is exactly right:

This so-called technical corrections bill is NOT about technical corrections, it is about tax hikes, plain and simple. Governor Bredesen has already said "I'm not going to ask for new taxes to solve this problem." I call on Governor Bredesen to stand by the this no tax hike pledge and oppose these back door tax hikes.

May 11, 2008

Democrats Dominate List of Candidates Who Failed to File Conflict-of-Interest Disclosures

The Tennessee Center for Policy Research reported Thursday that 19 candidates for the state legislature have failed to file required conflict-of-interest disclosures. It is no surprise that most of them are Democrats.

The TCPR examined races for 20 contested House and Senate seats across the state, including all races for open seats. In total, TCPR researched the filing status of 43 Republicans, 36 Democrats and seven Independents running for Tennessee House or Senate. That means that one in 10 Republican candidates failed to file the conflict-of-interest disclosure form, but a whopping one third of Democrats failed to file the conflict-of-interest disclosure form.

"The judges of the Supreme Court shall be elected by the qualified voters of the state."

The Wall Street Journal has a good editorial on Tennessee's Judicial Selection Commission the (most likely unconstitutional) process by which the Tennessee legal establishment controls - in secret meetings - who gets appointed to state judgeships and voters get to vote 'yes' or 'no' only on their retention after eight years. The blog American Courthouse has been following the debate over the commission's future.

May 10, 2008

Obama Boots Terrorist-Friendly Adviser

The fact that Barack Obama's foreign policy advisor Robert Malley was friendly with Hamas, the Iranian-backed terrorist group bent on the destruction of Israel is not news. It's been widely known for more than a year now to anyone paying close attention to the campaign. Yesterday, however, the Obama campaign fired Malley after his ties to Hamas got a little too hot. Turns out Malley didn't just write a lot of articles urging the U.S. to "do business" with Hamas, he also met with them. Ex-President Jimmy Carter also recently met with Hamas.They are, remember, a terrorist organization.

Update Michael Young writes of the dangerous infatuation Western liberals have with terrorist organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas.

57

Too funny. Details here. I wonder if Obama's wife is proud or not proud of the extra seven states.

May 9, 2008

Attack of Bredesen's Educrats on Home-Schooling and Church Schools Continues

Rob Shearer, who has been following the progress of legislation to force the Tennessee Department of Education to recognize as valid diplomas from home schools and church-related schools, says the victory hasn't been won yet. In a comment to this post, he writes:

Not so fast... The Department of Education has so far succeeded in declaring all homeschoolers' high school diplomas to be invalid. Rep. Bell's bill escaped the House Ed Committee without being hijacked, but it is now sitting in the Calendar & Rules Committee where it may be quietly allowed to die. If that happens, the Department will have succeeded in disenfranchising thousands of high school graduates by bureaucratic fiat.

It is an outrage. We have a shortage of good police officers. We have a shortage of good daycare workers - but the department can't stand it that someone out there might be getting an education outside their control.

Cindy Benefield, the Tennesseee Department of Education Executive Director of Field Services, who oversees the state's homeschooling office, recently declared that a diploma from a church-related school is "not worth the paper it is written on." That is not just the idle opinion of one uninformed bureaucrat, but has become Department policy. Bredesen's education commissioner, Tim Webb, told four legislators in April that until the legislature passes a law stating that the diplomas given by church-related schools are acceptable, they aren't acceptable for certain kinds of employment.

And the state is now now preventing people who hold diplomas from church-related schools or home schools from holding certain jobs. For example: a police officer in Roane County, who holds a diploma from a church-related school, then graduated the police academy with perfect grades, has been demoted and prohibited from continuing to serve as a police officer - even though he also graduated from the local community college. The Rockwood police officer has been forced to take a desk job until he takes and passes the GED because the Department of Education says his 2001 diploma from a church-related school is invalid.

The fallout goes beyond that one officer. Suspect he has arrested may be set free because he can not appear as a witness in the case because the state, which regulates the profession, says his diploma is invalid.

All professions which are regulated by the state and which require a high school diploma are at risk of this kind of intrusion by the state.

In 2004, the Tennessee Department of Human Services forced a Jackson day care center to fire an employee - on the job since 2000 - because her diploma came from a church-related school. The day care center owner was told she had to be fired because "her diploma is not from a school approved by the DOE."

The aforementioned Cindy Benefield is currently working with all 9 regional offices of the Department of Education training their employees that high school diplomas from church related schools are not accepted by the state.

Why is the Bredesen administration attacking church-related schools in this manner?

The first purpose of a liberal bureaucracy is self-preservation. Church-related schools and home-schooling represent unwanted competition for the state-controlled public education system and the power and money that it sends to the public education bureaucracy and the teachers' union.

Kay Brooks is following the progress of Rep. Mike Bell's legislation, House Bill 1652, and its Senate counterpart, SB 1827, sponsored by Sen. Dewayne Bunch, R-Cleveland, at the website TNHomeEd.com. You can track the legislation's progress on the legislature's website here.

Debate Site

Belmont University has launched a website for the presidential debate it will host in October.

May 8, 2008

Another Terrorist Endorses Obama

...And Obama's response is to attack John McCain for mentioning it. But seriously, it is unsurprising that Hamas would prefer Barack Obama. He, after all, has a foreign policy advisor - Robert Malley - whose enthusiasm for Hamas and disdain for Israel is well-known thanks to Malley's own published writings. In short, Malley thinks the United States should "do business" with Hamas, an Iranian-backed terrorist group bent on the destruction of Israel and eradication of the Jews who live there.

The good news: McCain's response to Obama was on target.

Today, Senator Obama is complaining about comments John McCain made about a senior Hamas advisor stating that Hamas would welcome Senator Obama's election as president. Indeed, on April 13th, senior Hamas political advisor Ahmed Yousef said, 'We don't mind - actually we like Mr. Obama. We hope he will (win) the election and I do believe he is like John Kennedy, great man with great principle, and he has a vision to change America to make it in a position to lead the world community but not with domination and arrogance.'

The McCain campaign has never suggested that Senator Obama supports Hamas' agenda, but it is more than fair to raise this quote about Senator Obama because it speaks to the policy implications of his judgment.

Just today, the president of Iran, whom Senator Obama wants to meet with unconditionally, called the state of Israel a 'stinking corpse.' Iran is the paymaster and state sponsor of Hamas.

In his victory speech this week, Senator Obama stated that 'wisdom' is meeting with our enemies, including Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, North Korea's Kim Jong Il, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Cuba's Raul Castro. John McCain couldn't disagree more. Rather than giving tyrants and dictators the prestige of meeting with an American president, John McCain will instead meet with the champions of human freedom around the world and opposition leaders fighting for liberty .

Things I'd Blog About At Length If I Had The Time

Hot Air explains "the Basra narrative.". ... Ross Douthat explains why the Republican Party is now the working man's party in "The Party of Sam's Club." ... Sam Harris looks at the ironic response of free society to radical Islam's attack on freedom of speech in "Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks." ... Sen. Lamar Alexander is making sense on energy policy. ...

Bredesen Administration: Some Public Records Aren't

Matt Pulle reveals the Bredesen administration's rather bizarre (and wrong) claim that some emails created by state government employees on state government computers aren't public records, even though state law clearly says they are. The Bredesen administration is no friend of open government, and more and more folks are starting to realize that.

May 7, 2008

120 mph, 200 mpg

Volkswagen is developing the ultimate commuter car for the 2010 model year - it gets 200 mpg. Gasoline could hit $40 a gallon and it will steal be cheaper to drive than my current car. Of course, if cars like this do hit the market at a reasonable price, gasoline won't hit $40 a gallon. Falling demand would mean falling prices - and the Saudis would increase production in order to drive oil and gas prices lower to reduce demand for super-high-mpg cars.

"We Will Prevail"

Matte Pulle - surely the odds on favorite to replace the irreplaceable Liz Garrigan as editor of the Nashville Scene - has a hilarious piece in this week's edition of the paper's "Desperately Seeking the News" column that in one fell swoop exposes the Bredesen administration's rather political approach to complying with open records requests, and the governor's wife's rather haughty attitude toward her critics, based on an email the administration deliberately kept from public eyes for four months. Oh, and Pulle notices what we at the Tennessee GOP noticed about the financing of the ballroom addition to the the governor's mansion: its "shifty economics."

[The] questionable financing for the project was one of the reasons the TCPR wanted to review the administration's emails in the first place. Trying to figure out what parts of the project were paid by private donations and what was covered by tax dollars leads you down a long and convoluted road of problem solving. A quick review of other emails the center obtained - Desperately received them right at press time - raises many questions about whether the administration has used some sort of creative shell game to pay for the less controversial aspects of the renovation with public dollars."

P.S. The Bredesen administration also is deliberately delaying the release to me of a single public document related to the ballroom project, which I requested 57 days ago. Given that they know where the document is, the only possible explanation is that the administration has decided that, for political reasons, they don't want to comply with the state's open records laws in this case.

Live-Blogging the Budget Cuts

WSMV reporter Cara Kumari live-blogs the governor's budget cuts announcement, beating all other media in bringing the details to the public. That's two days in a row that broadcast bloggers have beaten the ink-stained wretches. Blogging is the most agile news reporting medium ever invented.

Exit question: Why do TV bloggers often out-perform newspaper bloggers? Some thoughts at MeshMediaStrategies.com...

Update: Mike seems to think I'm showing contempt for print reporters by referring to them as "ink-stained wretches." What he must not know is that the phrase "ink-stained wretches" is common and affectionate term for print journalists. No less a political journalist than the great Jules Witcover even titled his 16th book, a memoir, The Making of an Ink-Stained Wretch: Half a Century Pounding the Political Beat

Current and former ink-stained wretches like myself don't mind the term at all.

Also, if Mike had read the piece at MeshMediaStrategies.com, he would have learned that I believe it is the ink-stained wretches, and the media outlets that employ them, who possess the long-term advantage in the new-media era, in part because they are so good at what they do.

May 6, 2008

Obama Wins For Losing

Regarding Tuesday's Democrat primaries in North Carolina and Indiana: Barack Obama won another state in which he has virtually chance to defeat John McCain to win in November, while Hilary Clinton wins another swing state. North Carolina was won twice by Reagan, twice by the first George Bush, twice by the second George Bush, and even by Bob Dole in 1996. Indiana, on the other hand, went for Reagan twice and George W. Bush twice, but voted for the first George Bush only once, in 1988, then gave its votes to Clinton twice.

Obama continues to lead in the Dem delegate count because he keeps winning primaries in states he is virtually certain to lose in the fall - states like Alabama, Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Missouri, Utah, Louisiana and Mississippi. Clinton, meanwhile, keeps winning swing states the Dems have to have to win in November.

UPDATE: I'm wrong. Indiana didn't go for Clinton twice. It went for Bush 1 twice, and then Dole.

But the overall picture is still that Obama is winning big in states he likely can't win in November.

The Future of News is Bloggy

And a blogger using Google shall lead them... (Congrats to Christian Grantham for the big scoop.)

Bredesen's Educrats Attack Home-Schoolers, Church Schools

A coalition of Tennessee home-schoolers and church-related schools have beaten back an attempt by a group of Democrat lawmakers and Tennessee Department of Education bureaucrats to declare their diplomas invalid for the purposes of certain kinds of employment.

I must say, I've listened to some of our public-school-educated Democrat lawmakers talk. And I've listened to my two home-schooled nephews - one with a master's degree in physics, the other with dual college degrees in theology and computer science - talk, and there is no question who among them received the superior education.

Return of the iPod Tax

Some bloggers appear to have caught Tennessee Revenue Commissioner Reagan Farr in an untruth about the state's tax on digital music downloads, thanks to a ruling approved by Farr himself and issued just a few weeks ago which categorically states that "songs downloaded onto the hard drive or accessed via the Internet are not subject to the sales and use tax because the music is delivered electronically, which is not taxable as sales of telecommunications services under Tenn. Code Ann. § 67-6-102(81)(B)(ix) (Supp. 2007) or as sales of tangible personal property under Tenn. Code Ann. § 67-6-102(80) (Supp. 2007)."

See: TerryFrank.net and Kleinheider at Post Politics.

It looks like the Bredesen administration has been illegally collecting sales tax on music downloads since Jan. 1, 2008, and that Farr is now pushing "technical correction" legislation to amend the tax code in order to make legal the tax they're already collecting. In other words, the technical corrections legislation will institute a new tax on digital music downloads.

Farr's explanation misleading spin is that the ruling letter, dated March 12, 2008, is actually several months old and doesn't reflect changes to the law that went into effect on Jan. 1, 2008. But the ruling letter itself belies that claim as it references on multiple occasions in its footnotes those changes that went into affect on Jan. 1, 2008.

As of today, no new law has been passed since the Department stated on March 12, 2008, that digital music downloads are not subject to the state's sales and use tax. As you were previously warned and more than once, the Revenue Department's "technical corrections" legislation now pending before the General Assembly contains a provision to levy a new tax on digital music downloads. That's not a "technical correction." It's a policy change.

This is the same administration and Revenue crew that slipped a $64 million gift to Nissan into law and also instituted a new tax on propane for your backyard barbecue grill via previous "technical corrections" legislation.

Update: I'm told Farr claims that in approving the ruling letter he did consider the new law, but just misinterpreted it. But that makes no sense - if the law already authorizes charging sales tax on digitally delivered products such as downloaded music, no "technical correction" would be necessary.

I'm hearing that the fireworks are only beginning on this, and that some major organizations representing some rather large corporations are about to get involved in the fight - and they aren't happy with the way the Revenue Department has, in the words of one, "duped" them into collecting a tax that didn't exist.

Is it possible that the existing statute really doesn't authorize the tax, but that the Revenue Department decided to go ahead late last year and tell companies to start collecting it anyway, while planning to implement the tax via this year's "technical corrections" bill?

Incidentally, major tech states like California have rejected this kind of tax.

Update: Welcome Instapundit readers.

Update: Tennessee GOP press release.

Jay Leno Explains the Democrats' "Energy Policy"

Thirteen years ago, the Republican-led Congress passed legislation to open a tiny sliver of frozen mud plain on Alaska's northern coast to oil drilling that would have given America access to an oil field with the equivalent of what we'll be importing from Saudi Arabia over the next 30 years. Democrat President Bill Clinton vetoed the legislation. Now, oil is $120 a barrel. And Democrats are still fighting every attempt to increase domestic oil production. That is why you are now paying close to $4 for a gallon of gas. [Hat tp: The Foundry]

Nigerian Terrorists Toast Obama

A group of murdering terrorists in Nigeria hold Barack Obama "in high esteem," reports Reuters:

Rebels who have stepped up attacks on Nigeria's oil industry in the last month said on Sunday they were considering a ceasefire appeal by U.S. presidential hopeful Barack Obama.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) has launched five attacks on oil facilities in the Niger Delta since it resumed a campaign of violence in April, forcing Royal Dutch Shell to shut more than 164,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd).

"The MEND command is seriously considering a temporary ceasefire appeal by Senator Barack Obama. Obama is someone we respect and hold in high esteem," the militant group said in an e-mailed statement.

So... who is MEND?

In 2006, a counterrorism expert warned that the MEND's goal of expelling Western oil companies from Nigeria, along with an upsurge of Islamic extremism in Nigeria's northern an central regions beginning in 1999 - involving much murder and arson targeted at Christians and Christian churches - could lead to a temporary "objective-oriented alignment" between the MEND and Islamic radicals.

In 2007, by Dr. J. Peter Pham, Director of the Nelson Institute for International and Public Affairs and a Research Fellow of the Institute for Infrastructure and Information Assurance at James Madison University, wrote a long article for World Defense Review warning that "outside terrorist networks" like al Qaeda and other Islamist radical groups could "exploit" the grievances and terrorism efforts of groupes like the MEND.

While the proximate issues affecting the security Nigeria's oil infrastructure - and, in fact, the stability and even viability of the Nigerian state itself - are generally local, this does not preclude outside terrorist networks exploiting those local grievances and militant groups. Dr. James S. Robbins, a professor at the National Defense University, published a report two years ago about a document entitled "Map of Future al-Qaeda Operations" posted on the al-Qaeda-lined al-Qalah ("The Fortress") website. The terrorist document argued that priority should be given to attacking oil facilities in the Middle East since this would damage the American economy, embarrass the U.S. and embolden other countries seeking to secure their own energy supplies, and force the U.S. to deploy more troops to the region to stabilize the situation. According to Dr. Robbins, the terrorists reason that "the U.S. will reach a stage of madness after the targeting of its oil interests" thus "facilitate[ing] the creation of a new front and the drowning of the U.S. in a new quagmire that will be worse than the quagmires of Iraq and Afghanistan." The counterterrorism expert went on to argue that "terrorists understand that they can influence oil markets through directed violence, and thus exploit a U.S. critical vulnerability."

Although Dr. Robbins focused on the Middle East, as I argued in a column last year, there is no reason why outside groups like al-Qaeda cannot do the same in Africa.

The most threatening effect posed by this increased violence in the River Delta against government facilities and foreign oil companies is the potential for a goal-oriented alignment between MEND and the radical Islamists abroad. This is not to say that radical Muslim groups will recruit members from MEND or vice versa. Instead, MEND may provide inspiration to radical Islamic groups who are witnessing its success, even through the jihadi forums. Damaging America's economy via targeting the oil industry has long been one of al-Qaeda's missions. If MEND continues to be successful in targeting and hurting Nigeria's oil economy, it is entirely possible that future successful attacks may give rise to other attacks conducted by terrorist organizations across the globe.

May 4, 2008

At Least He Didn't Claim To Have Voted For It Before He Voted Against It

The Kingsport Times News reports on the case of the mysteriously unrecorded vote, starring state Rep. Nathan "No Vote" Vaughn.

Update: The legislation at issue would have caused ex-lawmakers convicted of felonies to lose their state-paid health insurance, just as they already lose their state pension. In the committee hearing, a motion was made to refer the legislation to a committee that has already closed for the year, effectively killing the legislation, so a "No" vote would be a vote to keep the legislation alive, while an "Aye" vote was a vote to kill the legislation.

According to the Times News, Vaughn is now claiming he voted "No" - to keep the legislation alive. Is that true? Let's check the video - you can watch video of the committee hearing on the state's website. The vote comes 31 minutes and 32 seconds into the video. Vaughn is not heard voting no. In fact, no legislators are heard voting "No," though some are heard voting "Aye."

After the voice vote, no roll call vote is taken. At that point, members who want their position on the bill clearly recorded for posterity, public and press, have the option of asking the clerk to record their vote. Several members of the committee did just that, and asked to be recorded as voting "No."

The record shows Vaughn did not vote to do that, and the video of the hearing shows that Vaughn did not speak in favor of the legislation, which was actively opposed by several Memphis and West Tennessee Democrat lawmakers on the committee.

May 2, 2008

Deleting Trust

A reader of this blog sent me a cryptic message that one of our local dailies was actively deleting readers' comments posted to the paper's blogs, and in some cases was trying to "out certain subscribers depending on their viewpoint." I don't know the details or if the accusations are false, true or over-stated. I don't know if it involves readers' comments on staff-written blogs or things posted by readers on the paper's community blogs, but I do have some thoughts over at Mesh Media Strategies about how media companies ought to manage their blog comment sections.

Not-So-Open-Records Update

It has now been 52 days since I made a rather routine open-records request to the Bredesen administration, and specifically Department of Finance & Administration public information officer Lola Potter, for the video taken of blasting (for that underground ballroom) at the governor's mansion construction site. In the last two weeks, I have attempted again to contact Potter and administration attorney Janet Kleinfelter - whom Potter brought into the situation - and have been ignored, in violation of state law.

I'd write a longer update, but there has been no movement, and no attempt to follow the law, by the administration since I posted this update on April 16.

Meanwhile, as the Tennessee Center for Public Policy's lawsuit is pending against Potter and the administration for their willful failure to provide requested open records for more than nine months, today's Tennessean tells the story of yet another instance in which Potter and her bosses at F&A went out of their way to deny a member of the public (in this case, a reporter) access to what clearly is a public record.

City Paper to Mayor Dean: Commit Political Suicide

The City Paper urges Nashville Mayor Karl Dean to try to overturn the will of the people by challenging the city charter provision that requires public approval via referendum of some (not all) property tax rate increases. But the paper gets it wrong about who "showed up" and who didn't when the issue was debated:

Two years ago, the city politically progressive set did not show up for the biggest public policy battle ever waged at the ballot box in this city. Anti-tax advocates led by master grassroots organizer Ben Cunningham successfully brought in a petition drive to put the issue of Metro property taxes on the ballot.

Specifically, Cunningham's referendum asked Metro voters if they wanted to restrict Metro Council from ever raising their property taxes unless it was sent to a referendum of Metro voters for approval.

Despite the concept being a total public policy folly, it received little to no appreciable opposition from any quarter of Metro government or from other quarters of local leadership in the community. Former Mayor Bill Purcell said little to nothing about the measure, and the members of the Metro Council - many still sitting in their seats - wouldn't lift a finger to public campaign against it.

As I wrote during last year's Nashville mayoral campaign, "The charter amendment giving Nashvillians the right to vote on property tax increases may be the single most popular tax law on the books in Nashville, as voters overwhelmingly expressed a desire for more participatory democracy and more control over tax rates."

The simple fact is that either the group the City Paper calls the "politically progressive" represents less than 23 percent of Nashville voters, or a chunk of them voted for the tax-limiting amendment.

I predicted the day after voters passed the amendment in November 2006, that the city's political establishment would go to court to overturn the amendment, and that may indeed happen some day.

But even though there is conflicting legal opinion as to whether the state constitution permits such referenda, Karl Dean would be committing political suicide to challenge the amendment in court, and he'd be taking a majority of the city council over the cliff with him. Consider this: the amendment is the law until successfully challenged in court and the challenge sustained through the appeals process - and that legal challenge can't even begin until after the Metro Council passes a property tax hike and either refuses to submit it to a referendum and forces the tax-limiters to file suit, or sends it to a referendum and forces the executive branch or some of those "politically progressive" types to file a lawsuit.

Either way they go, it will be seen as an attempt to overturn the expressed will of the people of Nashville for the purpose of ramming through a tax increase without getting voters' approval as they expressly demanded, or for the purpose of imposing a tax already rejected by voters.

Legally, "progressives" who object to the amendment's injection of a little more democracy into the tax process in Nashville may have a leg to stand on. Politically they hold a loser hand for by seeking to overturn in the courts what the people of Nashville overwhelmingly voted into law would forever mark themselves as rejecting the will of the people they are supposed to serve.

If Ben Cunningham's charter amendment had passed with 50.01 percent of the vote, it would have merely changed Nashville's city charter. But it passed with 77 percent of the vote. That changed the political playing field in Nashville.

Unless Nashville's Metro Council and Mayor Karl Dean want to commit political suicide, I suggest they get about the business of learning how to run the city government with the resources and revenue they already have.

Incoherent Energy Policy

John Hinderaker considers the Democrats' incoherent energy policy, to the extent that they have one, as outlined by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi:

The Democrats' domestic policies are an incoherent jumble: they want lower gasoline and heating oil prices, but they block the very things, oil drilling and the construction of new refineries, that would actually reduce them.

The Rich Get...

richer.

May 1, 2008

The New American Courthouse

AmericanCourthouse.com, a blog I'm proud to say I had a little something to do with its launch, officially debuted Thursday (May 1). But the blog has actually been up and running for more than a month and drew more 1,120 unique visitors in April, and served up more than 12,000 pages of content. Not bad for a quietly launched blog. The focus of the blog is judicial reform at the state level. (You may recall that I've linked from here to a few of American Courthouse blogger Dan Pero's pieces about Tennessee's Judicial Selection Commission.)

Free non-expiring subscription to BillHobbs.com for the first person who can identify the courthouse in the new blog's logo.

Life, Abundantly

Nick Bostrom, Director of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University mulls the implications of finding - or not finding - life on Mars, and theorizes in great detail why if we find even the lowest of life forms there it suggests that it will soon (in evolutionary terms) be lights-out for the human race.

In a nutshell, Bostrom's argument is this:

Given the sheer number of solar systems and planets in the universe, the existence of life on another planet so close to our own would suggest that the there is life on many planets.

Thus, life on Mars = we're doomed to destroy ourselves, and soon, before our rockets and technology are advanced enough to colonize space.

It's a complex argument built on numerous assumptions, and an intriguing read, but Bostrom forgot one alternate possibility.

If you believe the alternate possibility, then bacterial life on Mars - or intelligent, technologically advanced life on the Planet Zeebo in the 43rd solar system past Alpha Centauri - doesn't portend doom for humanity at all.

Phil's Baggage

The Tennessean reports that Gov. Phil Bredesen won't tap the state's record-level "rainy day" reserves to prevent or at least delay layoffs of large numbers of state employees as the state's revenue deficit balloons (and the folly of his $1.5 billion annual spending increases becomes clear).

So, apparently, workers are just "baggage" to be thrown overboard, to use Bredesen's own description.

It occurs to me that Bredesen is reacting to this (self-inflicted) fiscal crisis the way you would expect an old HMO executive to do: He's cutting people to protect profits.