I have put this blog on hiatus for the foreseeable future, as I am focused on a variety of other projects.
[...]I have put this blog on hiatus for the foreseeable future, as I am focused on a variety of other projects.
[...]
In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to his own town to register.
So Joseph also went up [...]
I just realized that this blog turned seven two weeks ago, on November 30. Seven - that's older than one of my two children! I just renewed the domain name - but I also have been thinking long and hard about the future of this site for awhile. Tennessee's political, [...]
Obama. The Daley Machine. Rezko. Blagojevich. The tie that binds them: David Axelrod.
[...]Judson Wheeler Phillips speculates on the timing of the arrest of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
[...]The Tennessee Firearms Association now has a Facebook group.
[...]President-elect Barack Obama has already been caught in a lie regarding the scandal involving Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Meanwhile, Jonah Goldberg likes the Blagojevich scandal. ... And the fun is just beginning...
[...]A couple of Democrat state legislators are urging that the new Republican majority in the state legislature keep two Democrat partisans in their appointed positions as State Treasurer and Comptroller. Here's a piece of their op-ed in yesterday's Tennessean:
Replacing them during these tough economic times could have lasting ramifications [...]
The Tennessee Republican Party now has a new Facebook group, Tennessee GOP: Defend the Majority, dedicated to organizing support now to prepare to defend in the 2010 elections the historic legislative majority the Republicans won in Tennessee in 2008.
A Columbia Journalism Review writer spends all day following hyperlinks in news stories and winds up, he says, feeling like a gerbil running on a wheel. It's a good read, but the writer doesn't "get it"...
[...]The Bredesen administration's ongoing failure to get involved in this lawsuit means the city of Memphis may yet have to fight Mississippi for control of Memphis' own water in a Mississippi court room rather than before the U.S. Supreme Court. The Tennessee Republican Party urged the administration to change [...]
In the wake of National Public Radio's slanted depiction of voters in East Tennessee's state House District 2 as racists for voting out the incumbent Democrat state representative, an African-American, and voting in the white Republican challenger, Tony Shipley, Kingsport Times-News political reporter Hank Hayes emailed to remind me [...]
Go read ESPN sportswriter Buster Olney's article on legendary college basketball coach Don Meyer, who is recovering from a horrible car accident in typical Don Meyer style. My Nashville readers will recall Meyer as the former longtime coach of the Lipscomb University men's basketball team - and Olney as [...]
If Nashville picks this guy for public schools superintendent, look for increased demand to drive up housing prices in the suburbs. Exit question: Does The Tennessean let its reporters use Google?
[...]Barack Obama has picked his Commerce Secretary. I guess the sit-com deal is off. He was at Barack and Michelle's wedding, apparently.
[...]The Big 3 automakers are presenting their business turnaround plans to Congress today. You can find information on those plans online. Here is GM's plan, Chrysler's plan, and Ford's plan.
Ford says while it wants Congress to approve a $9 billion line of credit, it may not [...]
Ben Cunningham provides video of state Treasurer Dale Sims talking about the $6 billion in paper losses in the Tennessee Consolidated Retirement System's investments (in stocks, etc...) in just the last five months.
The TCRS is the pension fund for current and retired state employees, public higher [...]
Not so fast, says Josh Painter. Bonus: Fred Thompson makes an appearance in the story...
[...]
Fred Thompson's latest video, another masterpiece.
From a commentary by Texas Gov. Rick Perry and South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, published in the Wall Street Journal:
Borrowing money to "solve" a problem created by too much debt seems odd.Indeed. [...]
A few weeks ago I spent about half an hour on the phone with a reporter for National Public Radio discussing how Republicans were able to make historic gains in the state legislature in the November election amid a national Democratic tide. During the call, the reporter raised several areas [...]
ACK notes that I made some list of 200 political conservatives you should be following via Twitter. The thing is, I rarely use my Twitter account. Though I expect that will change going forward. I'm a late-adopter of Twitter, like Hugh Hewitt. But a lot of people [...]
The Republican Party can win a much bigger share of the youth vote in part by stressing the idealistic nature of conservatism, says this Ohio State freshman.
[...]The Rep offers up some good advice.
[...]Ben Cunningham's blog is called Taxing Tennessee, but even if you aren't interested in information about Tennessee and taxes, it is loaded - absolutely loaded - with great new stuff on a daily basis.
[...]Having politicized their offices, Tennessee state Treasurer Dale Sims and Comptroller John Morgan now are warning the new Republican legislative majority that the offices shouldn't be politicized. That's rich coming from two men who openly engaged in partisan politics under the banner of their appointed high offices, [...]
Kay Brooks reviews the recent accomplishments of Tennessee Democrats.
[...]I got an award from liberals, in which they accuse me of acting like liberals.
[...]Gov Phil Bredesen thinks that divisions in the House Democrat Caucus is why the GOP won a majority in the state House for the first time since 1869. Yeah, right.
The political battle between Gary Odom and Jimmy Naifeh didn't cost the Democrats the state House majority. [...]
Gov. Bredesen not only has no coattails or influence in legislative elections - pretty much every Democrat candidate in a close race that he campaigns for, raises money for, etc., loses - he has proven to have an influence deficiency among Democrat legislators in the state House.
In the race to be the next chairman of the Republican National Committee, it appears that former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele is courting the RebuildTheParty.com wing of the Republican activist community.
Update Update: South Carolina Republican Party Chairman Katon Dawson wants the job.
[...]Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen is proposing to hit family-owned businesses with a $45 million tax increase in the middle of an economic slump.
Update: The Rep wonders what happened to Gov. Bredesen's recent promise to balance the budget without raising taxes.
[...]Detroit radio talk show host Frank Beckmann says members of Congress, not auto execs, deserve to be grilled in a congressional hearing - with the auto execs asking the questions. And they are very good questions.
[...]In the interest of transparency, Obama should surely now release the full details of his contractual relationship with the Bertelsmann Corporation. After all, if one is to judge by his recent tax returns, even as president, he will be paid far more by Bertelsmann than by the American [...]
You may have heard of the lawyer who is representing one of Nashville's notorious "after-hours" clubs in a fight to continue to be allowed to host on-premises drinking in the wee hours of the morning (3-6 a.m.):
"It's not illegal to be out between the hours of 3 and 6, and [...]
Why Sarah Palin will lead the Republican revival: Preaching the Gipper Gospel.
[...]Mark Begich, the Democrat who narrowly beat Republican Sen. Ted Stevens, favors drilling for oil in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge - a position that puts him on the opposite side of President-elect Barack Obama and most Democrats. Regarding Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Begich says, "I think her issues [...]
Frank Cagle: "The Democrats have already started crying to the press about Mumpower and his new regime being partisan. This should only provoke hilarity as it comes from the jackbooted thugs who have run the House for the last two decades."
[...]And over on the other side, everybody is kung-fu fighting...
[...]Former Rocky Mountain News editorial writer and columnist Linda Seebach was a fan and good friend of bloggers. She retired from my favorite newspaper in 2007, but she's still doing good work, analyzing the recent ascent of new leaders to run America's two public teachers' unions and finding that [...]
Michigan Republican Party Chairman Saul Anuzis wants to be Chairman of the Republican National Committee. Here he is on Fox News earlier today. Is he the right guy to lead as we Rebuild The Party?
[...]Check out today's Fox News appearance by Jason Chaffetz, a newly-elected Republican lawmaker from Utah:
Principled, positive, conservative. More like this, please.
[...]Looks like Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano will be Homeland Security Secretary in the Obama administration, since she's done such a bang-up job of stemming the flood of illegals across the Arizona/Mexico border. Maybe her fiscal management expertise is what attracted Obama. She turned the state's $1 billion surplus into [...]
Ben Cunningham: Home schoolers are a political force.
Here's an excerpt from the story Ben links to:
Movie stars Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, married in 1997, home school their two children along with Will's nephew. Why? "For flexibility," Pinkett Smith told an Essence reporter, "so they can stay with [...]
Chip Saltsman says the Republican Party needs a 50-state strategy, a la the Democrat Party under the leadership of Howard "the Scream" Dean. I tend to agree, though I wonder why we should write off the other seven.
[...]President Bush, in one of his last official acts, an act of extreme decency and respect for life, has just made it much more difficult for President Obama to force pro-life healthcare providers to do abortions.
Update: A commenter questioned calling Obama "pro-death." But it is accurate. Read this [...]
Does Gerald Nicely, the Commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Transportation under the current Bredesen administration, read my blog? I don't know, but the bridge repair financing tool he's talking about today in The Tennessean I wrote about five years ago (four years before I got my current [...]
The Los Angeles Times reports that Barack Obama didn't actually do very much work during his four years as a practicing attorney. Anyone who was paying attention knew that, other than running for public office, Obama had little record of actual professional achievement and accomplishment. Still, why did the [...]
Over the years I have agreed less and less with Pat Buchanan, but today, reading his latest column, about the proposed auto industry bailout, I found myself agreeing with him more than usual. Not 100 percent - his nativist protectionist stance is troublesome and would be counterproductive - but [...]
Driving home from work today, listening to a Fox News discussion of the $700 billion economic bailout fund, I wondered why Congress couldn't have just cut taxes by $700 billion instead, given that tax cuts have historically fueled economic growth. Clearly, if we can afford to give $700 billion to [...]
At first, this video from seems to be an indictment of the low-information voters who backed Barack Obama, but in the end it really is an indictment of the media, which abdicated and utterly failed its responsibility to inform the electorate.
The utter lack of knowledge these voters show actually [...]
A state employee caught stealing nearly $2,000 from the taxpayers of Tennessee by working fewer hours than claimed on her time logs is still on the job - and she recently got a raise.
The State of Tennessee's own Management's Guide to Risk Management and Internal Control, [...]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/17/AR2008111703101.html">George Will on the proposed bailout of the Big Three automakers:
Congress could help the Detroit Three by allowing them, when meeting CAFE (corporate average fuel economy) standards imposed by Congress, to count fuel-efficient cars they import from their overseas factories. Congressional Democrats oppose that because those imports are not [...]
Wondered what victory in Iraq would look like? Well, wonder no more.
[...]The Nashville Scene reports that state Rep. Craig Fitzhugh, D-Ripley, will be running against Nashville Democrat Gary Odom for the position of House Minority Leader. If you aren't familiar with Fitzhugh, here's some recent history.
[...]The Hill takes a look at efforts to get the Right up to par with the Left online. RebuildTheParty.com, which I believe is a very promising effort that absolutely has the correct focus and goals, is featured.
[...]From the Detroit Free Press, six myths about the Big Three automakers.
[...]Why are President-Elect Barack Obama and congressional Democrats so determined to give GM, Ford and Chrysler tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer money (actually, taxpayer-financed debt)?
At RedState, this theory:
Barack Obama and the Congressional Democrats are clearly determined to extend Detroit a 'loan' that runs into the tens of [...]
Karl Rove for RNC chairman? Well, he does know how to win elections... and when Rove is around, the Left goes berserk.
[...]Michelle Malkin: If John McCain had come out against the $700 billion Wall Street Bailout back in September, he'd be President-Elect John McCain right about now. And Republicans in Congress looking for a route out of the political wilderness might wanna take note of that...
Was Sarah Palin a drag on the McCain ticket? Yes she was. She nearly dragged him across the finish line in first place.
[...]South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford thinks its bad economics and bad policy for Congress to be bailing out states. He's right, of course. Bailing out states merely means those states' governors and legislators won't have to be fiscally responsible. Federal bailouts are a drug that is proving to be [...]
The Tennessee Journal comments on Gov. Phil Bredesen's contributions to helping Democrats in state legislative races:
The governor recorded radio ads and robocalls for Democratic candidates. His picture was on dozens of mail pieces. He was in TV ads. He appeared at fund-raisers and stumped for candidates in key races. Yet [...]
State Rep. Susan Lynn, R-Mt. Juliet, discussed the Copeland Cap - the provision in the state constitution that's supposed to limit the annual growth of the state budget so we don't have $800 revenue deficits - and why it needs to be reformed, in a radio appearance on Mike Slater's [...]
Remember Robert Malley, that foreign policy adviser who Barack Obama fired during the campaign because it came out that Malley had been a little too cozy with the Islamist terrorist group Hamas? Election's over, so he's back working for Obama - who, I predict, will not turn out to [...]
Although the people of Tennessee voted for change last week, state Rep. Jimmy Naifeh, D-Covington, wants to give them more of the same.
[...]Tennessee Democrats and their allies in the left wing media continue to try to blame racism for why Republicans won a majority in the state legislature last week for the first time in 140 years. It's an absurd claim that defies all available evidence, logic and common sense.
First, they are [...]
President-elect Barack Obama's legislative agenda will include a national gun control law that would wipe out the right-to-carry laws that are on the books in most states. CNN reports. That's likely to trigger a backlash...
Meanwhile, in Indiana, the popular Gov. Mitch Daniels has signed into law legislation that [...]
From RebuildTheParty.com:
Some people believe our problems are mostly strategic and tactical. Others believe they are policy driven. It strikes us that there is a unifying solution to both, and that is to empower the individual, trust the people.Freedom is always a good strategy. [...]
The next Tennessee General Assembly shall have a Republican speaker, says the new Republican majority, speaking in one voice.
[...]An AP story looks at how "a wave of rural support for presidential candidate John McCain helped lead Tennessee Republicans to majorities in both chambers of the General Assembly for the first time in 140 years." The story includes a partial quote from yours truly:
State Republican Party spokesman [...]
Democrats in Minnesota are working hard to manufacture enough votes to steal Norm Coleman's Senate seat and give it to Al Franken. The top election official in Minnesota is a former community organizer with ties to ACORN and MoveOn.org. ACORN, of course, is the organization of community organizers [...]
CNN is reporting that some state's unemployment insurance trust funds "are rapidly running out of money amid soaring job losses," which is "prompting state officials to consider raising employer taxes or curtailing benefits, while forcing them to borrow from the federal government to cover claim."
So, where does Tennessee stand? [...]
While Democrats in Tennessee continue to fight over whether to blame Barack Obama, Phil Bredesen or Gray Sasser for the Democrats being swept out of power in the state house at the same time Democrats were winning big on the national level, here are two more theories as to how [...]
Despite the national Democratic tide in Tuesday's election, the Republican Party was able to grab first-in-history majorities in both houses of the state legislatures in Tennessee and Oklahoma. The GOP also regained a majority in the state Senate in Montana, after four years in the minority. Tennessee, Oklahoma and Montana [...]
Obama's win: Not a landslide, not a political realignment. The youth vote and the African-American vote accounted for Obama's entire popular-vote majority - and 73 of his electoral votes. Exit polls show a majority of voters still view themselves as center-right or conservative. Obama's victory, while impressive, is [...]
Republicans won control of the Oklahoma state Senate for the first time in that state's history yesterday, adding Oklahoma to the short list of states, along with Tennessee, that resisted the Obama tide. Republicans already controlled the Oklahoma House, so now the GOP controls both houses of that [...]
It's 1 p.m. central time. Some time in the next few hours, before the polls close in Pennsylvania, Florida, Virginia, Ohio and Missouri, a major national media outlet will, very likely, report that "exit polls" show Barack Obama winning big in one ore more of those swing states. The intended [...]
Democrats caught trying to steal the election for Barack Obama, in the battleground state of Pennsylvania.
Update: Is this legal? Probably not - and neither is voter suppression - but Democrats in PA are showing they don't care about the law when it gets in the [...]
A Catholic bishop says voting for the radically pro-abortion Barack Obama could put a Christian's eternal salvation at risk. Well, a vote for Obama does mean abetting the accelerated slaughter of the innocent unborn...
See also:
Why Do Democrats Want to Subsidize Infanticide?
Not Above Her Pay [...]
Half of all electric power in the U.S. comes from coal-fired power plants. Barack Obama told the San Francisco Chronicle he intends to make that industry go bankrupt. It's on video. There are more than 80,000 people employed in coal mining across America. The United States holds [...]
The poll that came closest to the actual results of the 2004 election says McCain is well positioned to win.
Related: Is there still a silent majority?
[...]Remember how Michelle Obama admitted she wasn't proud of America in her adult life - until her husband started winning the Democratic Party's presidential nomination? Looks like Barack feels kinda the same way. He didn't have real faith in the American people until he started winning.
I've always been [...]
David Frum does it very well.
[...]Will a heavily Democrat Congress really pass amnesty for illegals? Only if they want to be voted out of office in 2010.
[...]There's still a chance McCain can win.
[...]
