Thursday, December 22, 2011

Drugs On the Dole?

If you're on the dole and you aren't on drugs, why wouldn't you want to be tested?:


Senator Campfield's proposal, unlike the controversial Florida law under federal injunction, would only test for illegal and/or illicit substances, not for prescription drugs of any kind. Because of this, Campfield's legislation should be relatively low-cost and well worth it in order to keep the State of Tennessee from funding someone's illegal choices as much as it is possible to do so. Since these are taxpayer-funded benefits, there should be no debate about the need to keep tax money from moving into the world of illegal drugs and-for more importantly-the current criminal underworld which deals in them which such tax money would be (and in some cases-however small the number-certainly is) helping to fund.

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Wednesday, December 21, 2011

DeBerry Is Free

Former Tennessee House Speaker Pro Tempore says that she is free of cancer:

State Representative Lois DeBerry (D-Memphis) has said that after over three years of fighting cancer of the pancreas that she is free of the disease. Doubtless she is thankful, as The Tennessean put it today, just to be alive this Christmas. The veteran Shelby County Democratic legislator has been a fixture in the Tennessee House of Representatives for four decades, and she served as the first woman Speaker pro Tempore of the House. She has battled cancer since 2009, and now she says she feels as though she has a new lease on life.

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Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Boehner's the Deal-Breaker

Apparently, the Chattanooga Tea Party won't endorse Chuck Fleischmann because House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) showed up at his fundraiser:

When we have said in the past that many local Tennessee Tea Party leaders strike us as not knowing the first thing about the game of politics, this is an example of how this writer and others have come to that conclusion. Political parties in any political system anywhere in the world are coalitions which exist in part to gain power over government bodies. Once they have that power, their first and primary goal is to do what it takes to keep that power, and in our political system, that means raising money. A Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives normally wants to raise money for all of his candidates to help them stay in office, and he or she will appear at as many fundraisers as they possibly can for them. Appearance at such a fundraiser is not necessarily indicative that candidate X always sees eye-to-eye with the Speaker, it just means that the Speaker is doing what he has to do politicaly to make sure that a seat stays in his party's hands. If Weston Wamp or Jean Howard-Hill were to win the Republican nomination instead of Fleischmann, it would not be the least bit surprising to see John Boehner at a fundraiser for either of them in the future.

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Monday, December 19, 2011

Haslam and Voter ID

Does he just walk the way the wind blows?:

We understand that in Tennessee, a Governor's veto is essentially worthless, since a veto can be over-ridden by a simple majority in both Houses of the General Assembly. However, Governors have used vetos before in order to make a public statement about their objection to some particular piece of legislation that came to them from the General Assembly. If Haslam has such an objection to the provisions of the Voter ID law, wouldn't the appropriate time to voice those issues be when the bill comes to his desk for his required signature, and he has a public news conference and says "I just can't abide this and I am going to veto it, you all worry about it if you decide to over-ride me?" Haslam didn't do that, in fact he didn't even veto the legislation without public fanfare. What did Governor Haslam do to voice his supposed objections to the Voter ID Law? He signed the bill, and with little public comment.

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