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.
Labels: Conservatism, Local politics, Miscellany, Republican Party, Tennessee politics
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.
Labels: Democrats, Local politics, Tennessee politics
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.
Labels: Congress, Conservatism, Elections, Federal politics, Local politics, Republican Party, Tennessee politics
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.
Labels: Conservatism, Democrats, Elections, Local politics, Republican Party, Tennessee politics
