An interesting interview with Gov. Haslam

From the City Paper...

Bill Haslam: 'Gay rights is a broad topic'

Here's a snippet...

Q: Why do you take these positions? Do you think the gay lifestyle is a choice?
A: Oh, I’m not going to go into all that discussion.

Where is this history coming from?

Tell me, Representative, at what point in history did government spending cuts lead to economic growth? Your logic doesn't make sense. Period.

Blackburn and gay?

Congressman Blackburn and her gay sidekick. The Hillary aide is right on target... passing hatred off as patriotism is just plain sad.

Blackburn is not the 7th

From the Jackson Sun...

Blackburn, Republicans want to destroy Social Security
11:00 PM, Jun. 15, 2011

Rep. Marsha Blackburn is not one of us. She lives in a Brentwood mansion in Williamson County, one of the wealthiest in the country. She paid her children hundreds of thousands to manage an unopposed campaign. She thinks nothing of spending thousands on opera tickets. When she stoops to visit constituents, it's brief, on short notice and when most people can't attend.

Last year while Nashville was under water and tornadoes ripped through her district wreaking havoc and costing lives, she sponsored "spa day" at a posh D.C. hotel rather than checking on us. She doesn't know what it means to work hard for a living only to make ends meet. She draws a salary of $174,000 a year plus expenses. She won't have to depend on Social Security in her old age. Unlike many of our elderly and sick, she will never have to make a choice between eating and buying her medicine.

No wonder Blackburn co-sponsored Paul Ryan's plan to abolish Medicare and replace it with a "shop-your-own-insurance" voucher. No wonder Blackburn, along with six other Republicans, introduced legislation last week that allows workers to opt out of Social Security.

The SAFE (Savings Account for Every American) Act is anything but safe. Workers would be allowed to take the 6.2 percent they currently contribute to Social Security and throw it to the whims of the market in a privatized account. After 15 years, employers could also privatize their 6.2 percent match.

Reforms are needed to sustain this safety net for the aged and disabled, but diverting monies into privatized accounts means death to Social Security. Social Security will be there for us as it has been for the past 75 years, if we continue to contribute to it. If Blackburn and other GOP culprits get their way, they will destroy Social Security and Medicare for those whose very lives depend on it.

Meryl Rice
Whiteville

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Speaking of... this is where you can find our Rep. Blackburn on June 29...

New York Young Republicans Club 99th Annual Dinner
Wednesday, June 29th, 2011
6:30PM – 10:00PM
Manhattan Penthouse – 80 5th Avenue (at 14th Street)

Includes passed hors d’oeuvres, open bar, and three course dinner.

The NYYRC is celebrating our 100 year anniversary! Last year’s annual dinner was our most successful annual dinner to date with over 180 attendees and this year being our 100th anniversary will be bigger and better than ever.

This event will feature Congressman Marsha Blackburn and Monica Crowley as a guest speakers, and Curtis Sliwa as emcee.

Inspiring, to say the least

One of the first pictures of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords post-shooting...

TN Legislator wrap-up

A good wrap-up from MetroPulse out of Knoxville...

Bullshit from Blackburn

The Nashville Scene calls out Blackburn on her stale ideas, and the Tennessean for praising them...

How Serious Is The GOP About Reforming Health Care?
Posted by Brantley Hargrove on Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 1:41 PM

The answer: Not very serious, if a bill advanced by Rep. Marsha Blackburn is any indication. Read this story to find out why.

But in the meantime, I'll give you the CliffsNotes. Blackburn has proposed a piece of legislation, the Health Care Choice Act, that would mandate that states allow the interstate sale of health insurance — something that's currently illegal. It's the classic GOP free-market argument, the theory being that it would spur competition and drive down prices, thereby decreasing the shamefully massive number of uninsured Americans.

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office says that's some seriously wishful thinking — or at least it said so back in 2005. That's when Blackburn's bill was essentially proposed before, word-for-word, by Arizona Republican John Shadegg.

We were motivated to write about this by a story in The Tennessean, which proclaimed the bill as "another advance in Blackburn's profile as a policymaker in Congress." Respectfully, we call bullshit. Read on and you'll see why.

First, we got a response from a Blackburn spokesman that didn't make it into the story. When asked about worries that states with fewer insurance regulations would poach healthier people from states with more protections, consequently depleting the counterbalance that keeps rates relatively stable, he said Blackburn's bill has an answer for that. The bill leaves intact state high-risk pools, he said.

The more Pith thought about it, the less satisfactory we found that answer.

For starters, not every state has a high-risk pool. A 2010 Kaiser Family Foundation estimate puts the number at 34, with a paltry 222,000 enrollees. Why is the number so low, you ask? Because they're a well-intentioned but failed experiment. They're too damned expensive, for obvious reasons. What can you expect from an insurance pool composed of nothing but people in various states of disrepair?

Of course, this is all merely a philosophical exercise. There isn't a snowball's chance in hell the Senate will pass a repeal measure, and it could be sometime yet before the U.S. Supreme Court gets its hands on the various legal challenges wending their way through federal district and appeals courts. And don't get us started on that.

Blackburn says screw everyone!

Blackburn pushes interstate health insurance bill
Critics say measure would make it hard to regulate insurers


Check out the front page of the Tennessean today... basically more of the same from Marsha: let corporations call the shots because they have everyone's best intentions at heart.

The Williamson County GOP is no longer a political party

Read and you will see why (from the Tennessean)...

Dutch politician brings anti-Islam views to TN

Dutch politician Geert Wilders sees a kindred spirit in Tennessee — a state where new mosques draw protests and the legislature is considering a bill that once targeted adherents of Islamic law.

On trial for hate speech in his home country, Wilders brought his headline-grabbing views on Islam to Middle Tennessee on Thursday. He came to town as the invited guest of the Tennessee Freedom Coalition, a 2-week-old political coalition founded by Republican former congressional candidate Lou Ann Zelenik.

“I come with a warning for America,” said Wilders, a filmmaker and member of the Dutch parliament, and something of a cult celebrity in some conservative circles.

Close Islamic schools, he warned America. Halt construction of mosques — or “hate palaces,” as he calls them. Cut off immigration from “non-Western and especially Islamic countries,” and expel any immigrants who do not “assimilate.”

“I was happy to visit the state of Tennessee, where I know a lot of people — certainly a lot of Christians — feel the same threat as we do, and know when you talk about values, when you talk about who you are and who you are not, and that Christianity is for certain not the same as Islam,” said Wilders, who is not himself a Christian. “I compare Islam not with Christianity and Judaism. I compare Islam with fascism and communism.”

His first stop of the day was talk show host Steve Gill’s radio show, then a meet-and-greet and news conference at Williamson County Republican Party headquarters in Franklin. The evening ended with a closed-to-the-press speech at Cornerstone Church in Madison about what Wilders sees as the evils of the world’s second-largest religion.

In Franklin, about a dozen protesters stood in the punishing May sunshine across from Republican headquarters, waving signs that said “SHAME” and “Be nice or go away.”

“It’s very inappropriate for an official political party here in Tennessee to bring in someone so notorious,” said Williamson County Democratic Party Chairman Peter Burr. “This guy is sort of the epitome of the outside agitator. That’s not the way we do business here in Tennessee.”

Across the street, about two dozen visitors milled outside Republican Party headquarters, eating lunch or filing inside to shake hands with Wilders. He traveled with a contingent of local and Dutch security, wary of the large number of death threats he has drawn over the years.

Despite the controversy, or perhaps because of it, his visit was a headline-grabbing coup for the fledgling Tennessee Freedom Coalition.

“Not bad for our first event,” said Jeff Hartline, the coalition's director. Wilders’ visit was not an official fundraiser for the coalition or the GOP, although Hartline said he expected to see a spike in donations as a result.

Wilders’ visit comes as the Tennessee legislature moves toward a vote on what was once known as the anti-Shariah law bill. After a storm of protests, lawmakers stripped any reference to Shariah — the religious law of Islam — from the bill. Instead, it now grants the Tennessee governor and the state attorney general the power to declare organizations to be terrorist groups.

It is expected to pass overwhelmingly.

Wilders, meanwhile, squeezed in his Tennessee visit between a speaking tour of Canada and his return home to the Netherlands.

“We have nothing against Muslims, as such,” he said in parting. “We have nothing against people of any kind of origin. We have a problem with the Islamic ideology.”

The Council on American-Islamic Relations issued a statement condemning Wilders’ visit to Tennessee and asking state and local Republican officials to repudiate the decision to “honor one of the world’s leading Islam-haters.”

B.S. from Beth

It's no secret how nutty the TN legislature has gotten since the November elections. Instead of doing anything meaningful, they've focused on banning Islam, abortion, and homosexuality. Here's Speaker Beth Harwell's response to concerns on the Special Access to Discrimate Act... which would prohibit Metro gov't from including sexual orientation in its discrimination policy...

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Thank you for contacting me in regard to the Equal Access to Intrastate Commerce Act, House Bill 600. I appreciate hearing your concerns.

The bill passed through the house last night. When local government mandates to private businesses what their policy regarding employment practices should be, it causes undue burden on those businesses. Further, this legislation will ensure that continuity exists across the board with regards to businesses who contract with local governments. This is why business groups like the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Independent Business support the legislation.

While much of the public discussion of the bill has been regarding the anti discrimination ordinance in Nashville, the legislation has broader implications. This bill would prevent local governments from going in the opposite direction - passing local laws that are discriminatory in nature. By passing this legislation, all local laws will be uniform across the state. While I understand your concerns about its effect on Nashville, I believe this is a positive step for the state as a whole.

Beth Harwell
Speaker of the House

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*Cough, cough*... bullshit.