With tonight’s Midtown Republican Club meeting topic the Common Core Curricula, here’s a link to an article by Joe Saino on his website: http://www.memphisshelbyinform.com/2013/06/03/stop-common-core-in-tennessee/.
I did not attend the FACT forum, but appreciate his take on what’s going on. Our legislature does not meet again til January. That gives us plenty of time to contact them and put pressure on them to stop this monstrosity.
Ever since State Senator Brian Kelsey was a law student at Georgetown, where he found himself immersed in liberal thinking, Kelsey has embraced a conservative view of the Constitution. In particular, he believes in following that document in jurisdiction.
“I believe in following the Founding Fathers plan for how we select judges in Tennessee,” Kelsey said. “I want to use the Madisonian idea. After the 1970 election which put Republican Winfield Dunn in the governor’s office, the Democrats saw trouble. They did away with elections for state supreme court justices. They decided to follow the Missouri plan. It did away with elections for state supreme court justices. In it, lawyers on a board select three candidates and send them to the governor. This nominating committee, you don’t know who they are.” Kelsey proposed and the legislature passed the right to give Tennesseans a yes/no vote on retaining them for their eight year terms.
Then a question was asked about the state attorney general. In Tennessee, the state Supreme Court appoints him. We are the only state in the union to do this. Currently the AG is a Democrat who has refused to go along with other states in their attempts to stop Obamacare. How does Kelsey feel about this system?
He doesn’t like it. Kelsey described how an attempt to stop this was on the verge of a win a few years back. It lost by one vote. “The person really didn’t understand it and hadn’t looked into it.” Kelsey said he was very upset by that vote and is working towards another effort to change the system.
Then he did something politicians don’t usually do. He asked the audience what they thought should be done. People were silent for a minute because everyone was taken aback that he valued our opinion. One person thought it was an imperfect system but in the end should be the right of the citizens. Others expressed doubt in the ability to trust the electorate on such an important matter. Another brought up the salient point of ongoing voter fraud. It gave Kelsey a feedback politicians usually don’t seek.
As for the second amendment, another concern of Tennesseans, Kelsey has no worries about it. “The current U.S. Supreme Court is more protective of second amendment rights than any in the history of the United States.” He cited two recent rulings as proof: the District of Columbia vs. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago. In the first, the Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to possess a firearm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home and within federal enclaves. In the second, the Supreme Court decided that Chicago could not ban guns as they had tried to do.
When the court decided to uphold Obamacare, Kelsey said he was happy that at least they had struck down the Medicaid provision to expand it in states. So for this year, Tennessee will not have to increase funds for it. The bad thing is that Haslam “said it applies only for this year.” Kelsey would like to extend that.
Kelsey is proud of three issues that Tennesseans will be able to vote on in the jumbo ballot of 2014. The first is a pro life amendment that would stop the 2000 law that gave Tennessee more liberal abortion rights than many states. The second is the vote on following the Founding Fathers’ way of selecting judges. Number three is the vote to ensconce Tennessee’s income state tax ban.
From the Family Action Center of Tennessee comes this local version of what the IRS was doing:
It is not known how many conservative nonprofits in Tennessee were targeted by the IRS, but one is particularly chilling for parents. The group was seeking tax exempt status as an educational organization for the purpose of mentoring high school and college students in conservative political philosophy. Over a year after filing for nonprofit status, it received from the IRS a list of 30 questions, some with up to 6 subparts, seeking volumes of additional information including the identities of the students the group had trained.
Take a look at the pages of questions addressed to the Linchpins of Liberty in Franklin. Pages and pages of questions! http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/05_02/Linchpins%20of%20Liberty%20IRS%20letter.pdf
We on the right side of the aisle knew before the first question was raised that PolitiFact was going to be PolitiFiction. It took any comment made by a Republican and dissected it to find something untruthful. Any comment by Democrats was explainable.
Jesus could have been said to have “Pants/robe on fire” if they had thought he was a Republican.
Take, for instance, today’s PolitiFact Tennessee says “Cohen’s criticism of Delta Air Lines Rings True.” Not a hard call when all Cohen said was “Delta Air Lines has once again broken a promise they made to me and to the people of Memphis.” I don’t know what promise they made to him anyhow, do you? Really out on a limb with that one, criticizing a company nobody here likes.
Conservative Fact Check took a look at PolitiFact and compared. Here’s a chart summing up their findings:
You can see who they consider the betes noires (is that racist?) to be. When Bill Clinton is one of the least liars it invalidates the whole process.
Lookie here! Ace of Spades found “this nugget of caramel goodness I saw at NRO today:
Charles, a Campaign Spot reader in Tennessee, took a look at the totals after the first day of early voting in his state:
All Obama Counties in Tennessee
2008: 36,144
2012: 25,317
Change: -30%
All McCain Counties in Tennessee (except Henry which has not reported 2012EV totals):
2008: 71,846
2012: 94,588
Change: +31.7%
Come on, landslide!
Actress Reese Witherspoon named her new baby boy Tennessee. Tennessee Toth is the young ‘uns name. Where did that come from?
Friday night the doorbell rang. I got up to answer it, looked through the window in the door and saw a young woman with a blue T shirt and a clip board.
I opened it, going outside to prevent two insistent dogs from joining me; one my own and one a guest. The young woman introduced herself as being with the Tennessee Democrat Party. The “enemy” at the door, so to speak! I was quite surprised that she had the nerve, insensitivity or lack of intelligence to knock on the door of someone with three Republican candidates’ signs in the yard.
I told her we were Republicans and to take a look at the garage which sports a sign “Republican Parking Only.” She nodded and left.
I then regretted that I had not let her give me her spiel. That’s a problem with us Republicans. We are not devious or conniving enough to listen to the opposition. They are trained in guerrilla warfare and deception. Frankly, we are not.
I also wondered if any of our candidates have been going door to door in Midtown. Rick Rout at one of our meetings said he intended to, but he did not attend our Midtown Fourth of July neighborhood event and I haven’t seen any evidence that anyone has door knocked.
Looking at the last election’s results in Midtown showed that the turnout was half Democrat and half Republican. Yet many give up on us. We’re in the game! Former Shelby GOP executive director Don Johnson has said that we have the votes in Shelby County. It’s largely a matter of turnout. He was proved correct in 2010.
Voter records indicate that there are roughly 60,000 registered Republicans in Shelby County, vs. about 45,000 registered Democrats. We could – and certainly should – win every election.
Our people have to be made painfully aware that every single office is important to them and to their future. They need to know how important they are. Midtown is especially important since it is a swing district. Win Midtown and you win Shelby County.
The Democrats even here can be beaten.
Mayor AC Wharton’s idea to use library cards as voter IDs has confused the issue of what is a valid ID. Don Johnson, Field Rep for Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn, relates on Facebook this from Tenn. GOP executive director Adam Nickas: “Can’t you use your Kroger Plus card to vote? I heard that from Shelby Democrats.”
This morning’s Commercial Appeal devoted some of the Viewpoint section to profiles of the candidates up for election Aug. 2.
Missing in the District 9 primary was Dr. George Flinn, perhaps the leading candidate on the Republican side. There was an editor’s note that read “The other candidate in this race, George S. Flinn Jr., did not respond to repeated requests made to his campaign to submit information.”
Not so, says Dr. Flinn who writes on Facebook today:
This morning the Commercial Appeal printed a 2012 Ballot Primer in the Viewpoint Section of the newspaper. It was incorrectly noted that we did not respond to their request for information. In actuality we did respond to their request and the paper posted our response on-line this past Friday morning. We hope the paper will correct this error and I wanted to make sure that you all had an opportunity to read the information we provided.
He then links to this:
Name: George Flinn
Age: 68
Political background/experience:Republican nominee for Shelby County Mayor in 2002. Appointed to the Shelby County Commission on October 20, 2004 representing District 1, elected to the position on August 3, 2006. Ran for Congress in the 8th District of Tennessee in 2010.
Education: Memphis Central High School (1961), University of Mississippi (B.S., electrical engineering, 1965), Medical Degree, University of Tennessee 1969.
Occupation/career: Radiologist with seven offices in Memphis and throughout Shelby County. Owner of Flinn Broadcasting, with over 40 radio and TV stations.
Family: Single with two children and three grandchildren.
Personal: N/A
Motivation: My motivation for running for Congress is the future of not only my children and grandchildren but of our country’s next generation. I have been blessed in my life with a wonderful family and career. Serving patients in Memphis for the last 30 years has allowed me the opportunity to see the unique issues that face our area. My medical and business background perfectly positions me to craft solutions to the very difficult issues that our country faces today.
Top issues: We are facing so many issues as a nation right now but the three issues most impacting the 9th Congressional District are healthcare, the economy and joblessness and leadership.
The healthcare delivery system in our country is broken. Reforms are desperately needed but the Affordable Care Act has done nothing to address the real problems facing our citizens. I will take to Congress a unique perspective on health care and what it should be in our country.
Our community has struggled with joblessness for years and it has only gotten worse as our economy has gotten horribly off track. We need better opportunities in Memphis for meaningful work.
These problems cannot be addressed without strong leadership in Congress. I will go to Washington to represent all of the people of the 9th Congressional District.
Mayor AC Wharton has disgraced himself with his library photo ID card idea for voting. Anyone who thought he was non partisan can now go back to watching Sesame Street and let the rest of us voters act like adult Americans.
First, it is not the job of a city mayor to decide what a valid ID is for the state. That’s why we have people in Nashville. It’s called the legislature. They take care of state wide issues such as proper voter registration. If every community decided what the standards would be for voting, we would have an unequal system. Someone in Chattanooga could say it was a work badge. Someone in Knoxville could say it was a University ID. Someone in a county could decide it was a property deed.
No, Wharton is not king of Tennessee and he should not exceed his powers. How someone votes in Shelby County impacts people in Knox county and others. They certainly did not elect Wharton and they probably would have more sense than to vote for him.
Wharton has been in government long enough to know this. What propels him is Democrat talking points handed down from the Obama administration via the Justice Department. They and Wharton want to sow seeds of doubt about the election. They want to incite their constituents, particularly blacks, to anger, hoping it will increase their numbers at the polls. It’s a reprehensible policy damaging to our country’s democracy.
In this city there are plenty of poll workers who are black and/or Democrat. They control most precincts. I can’t imagine them turning any voter away. The uneducated probably don’t realize that there are such things as provisional ballots whenever a citizen’s legitimate ID is questioned. If the provisional vote is verified, that vote counts. So what’s the problem?
In Memphis there are not the equivalent of the Black Panthers waiting at the polls to intimidate voters as the Black Panthers actually did in Philadelphia in 2008. Can you imagine the cries and outrage if there were? It wouldn’t – and shouldn’t – be tolerated. But it doesn’t exist anyhow.
Today’s editorial in The Commercial Appeal calls for us to “Keep options open on ID.” They proclaim that “the library system does due diligence in making sure the individuals to whom it issues library cards are who they say they are.” How do they know this? They don’t. They just assume “the library has a financial stake in ensuring the items they lend out are returned.” Really? Since when did a government agency employee care about waste and fraud? May I remind you of bath tub boy at the GAO?
The editors go on to pin the tale on the elephant when it comes to watching for voter fraud. “They have been adamant in claiming such measures are needed to protect the voting process from fraud, although few cases of fraud that would have been prevented by voter ID requirements have been recorded in recent years.”
Again, really? Where’s the proof? I remember a few years back when they found that a person dead since 1952 had voted regularly in Shelby County elections. I specifically remember that because the man had been dead longer than I’ve been alive! That’s just one quick example off the top of my head. God knows how many more of the dead have voted.
“The photo ID requirement in itself places an extra burden on some individuals,” they continue. And the problem is…?
Being a citizen requires some amount of effort. Being informed is one thing and getting yourself to get a photo ID if you happen to be one of the infinitesimally small numbers of those without a drivers license is another. Some of our ancestors really paid a price. They died in wars protecting our right to vote.
Surely doing the minimal of getting a photo is worth protecting our democracy.
The Democrats and the media know that. They just want to stir up discord in order to influence and assure elections go their way. Wharton knows that, too. Shame on him!