Talked about your informed citizenry

From Think Progress...

Corker Booed By Workers At GM Plant Ceremony, Takes Credit For Saving Industry That He Opposed Saving

General Motors recently announced that, thanks to federal efforts to keep the American auto industry from going under, it would be able to rehire 483 workers at its Spring Hill, Tennessee plant to manufacture “three variants of Ecotec four-cylinder engines.” The $438 million arrangement will start producing engines for the Buick, Chevrolet, and GMC models by 2011.

As auto blog Jalopnik reports, the plant recently held a ceremony to welcome back the new workers to begin production of the Ecotec engines. Attending the ceremony were three local Republican legislators, Sens. Bob Corker, Lamar Alexander, and Rep. Marsha Blackburn. Ironically, all three of these lawmakers opposed the plans to save General Motors and other U.S. auto companies. This didn’t stop Corker from taking credit for the federal rescue, anyway. At the event he claimed he “contributed to strengthening the auto industry in this country.” Jalopnik reports that “irony of the Republican lawmakers’ presence wasn’t lost on the workers who attended the ceremony; they booed Tennessee Republican Bob Corker”:

Happy days came back Friday to Spring Hill, Tenn., when General Motors announced it would rehire 483 laid-off workers to build four-cylinder engines. On hand to cheer the news: Three Republican lawmakers who opposed the bailout that saved GM.

As part of its $50 billion bankruptcy arranged by the Obama administration, GM shuttered the Spring Hill plant’s assembly line last year, shedding 2,000 jobs in the process, but kept building four-cylinder engines. The new plan calls for $483 million in spending to upgrade the engine line, pending a deal on state incentives.

The irony of the Republican lawmakers’ presence wasn’t lost on the workers who attended the ceremony; they booed Tennessee Republican Bob Corker, and one UAW official made clear from the stage that the union still remembered which politicians had voted to rescue Wall Street but opposed an auto industry bailout.

Jalopnik goes on to note that when the auto industry rescue was being negotiated, Corker was speaking very differently about federal efforts to revive GM. At the time, Corker said that the Obama administration “has decided they know better than our courts and our free market process how to deal with these companies. … This is a major power grab.”

Premature victory

The GOP and mainstream media have been falling all over themselves to declare victory for Scott DesJarlais over Rep. Lincoln Davis in TN-04. Obviously, they're dismissing the following as a smear campaign because NO Republican ever goes below the belt...

From the Nashville Scene...

Papers from DesJarlais' Bitter Divorce Pop Up in Media
Posted by Jeff Woods on Thu, Sep 16, 2010 at 11:08 AM

Scott DesJarlais' old divorce papers have turned up in the media, and we think it's fair to say he's no longer looking like such a formidable challenger to Congressman Lincoln Davis. DesJarlais was the new darling of the state Republican Party, endorsed by Sen. Bob Corker and Rep. Marsha Blackburn, and the Cook Political Report just switched this contest from likely Democratic to leaning Democratic. Whoops. From the divorce papers:

In a motion filed in November 2000, Susan DesJarlais sought to obtain sole possession of the couple's home and claimed she was forced to leave the residence when her husband's behavior "became violent and threatening."

In that document, Susan DesJarlais accused her former husband of "dry firing a gun outside the Plaintiff's locked bedroom door, admission of suidical ideation, holding a gun in his mouth for three hours, an incident of physical intimidation at the hospital; and previous threatening behavoir... i.e. shoving, tripping, pushing down, etc."

DesJarlais could spin this story as proving his strong belief in the right to bear arms. OK, maybe that wouldn't work. Instead, he's accusing Davis of running a smear campaign. Apparently, DesJarlais thinks the Davis campaign gave these divorce papers to reporters. Imagine that.

"As rankings and polls continue to show Lincoln Davis' career is nearing its end," DesJarlais campaign says in a comical press release, "the career politician has responded by running a gutter campaign rarely witnessed in Tennessee's Fourth District."

But all is not lost. There's a valuable lesson to be learned here. In the future, Republicans should do a little research into their candidates before they get behind them and make fools of themselves.

Think before you dine

Here's a good website to check out before you go out to eat in Nashville...

Gun Free Dining Tennessee

Racist Roundup

Here's a very comprehensive website showing the domestic terrorist threat posed by right-wing Republicans and Tea Party racists.

Selective memory by Marsha Blackburn

Aug 31 2010
The President's Speech
Marsha Blackburn

President Obama has announced the transition of our military from a combat operation to an “advise and assist” operation. Iraq now will determine its own future, free of a murderous dictator, with all the rights and risks inherent in any nation engaged in changing their form of government. It is now up to the Iraqi people to chart their course.

All Americans are grateful to our magnificent military. Their courage and dedication to duty make all of us proud every minute of every day. We do not forget the sacrifices of so many Tennesseans in service to our nation. We will be forever grateful and remember them with our prayers.

It was the surge strategy developed by General David Petraeus and ordered by President Bush that enabled us to reach the point that we can now relinquish combat operations to the Iraqi armed forces. It was interesting to me to hear Robert Gibbs say that the Obama Administration is not interested in looking back in Iraq, instead they want to look ahead.

I can’t help but wonder if that might be because candidate Obama was opposed to the surge. In fact, he said “I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse.”

Tonight it would be nice to hear the President acknowledge the success of President Bush’s surge and thank the military leaders who he and so many liberals have called liars and traitors.
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Seems to me that the "liars" and "traitors" name-calling was about them starting the war in the first place? So, really, President Obama should've thanked George Bush for beginning a war, then trying a new strategy after a few years of no progress.