Wednesday, November 26, 2008

If that wasn't bad

My state representative opines on the new Republican controlled Tennessee legislature:

"I think our friends across the aisle have some bad things in store for the people of Tennessee," said Old Hickory Rep. Mike Turner, who was elected [Democrat] caucus chairman.
  • Like 600 billion 800 million dollars in illegal over the Copeland Cap spending?
  • Like a 17 million dollar party bunker?
  • Like Crutchfield, Ford, Ford, Bowers, Dixon, Briley & Cooper?
  • Like stealing elections from fellow party member Kurita and making a mockery of the election process?
  • Like propping up a Lt. Governor who pontificates to the point that, to paraphrase O. Ford, hasn't been hitting on nothing with most of us for some time?
  • Like allowing junior high treatment of 'friends across the aisle' in committee meetings?
  • Like using the Calendar and Rules Committee to kill legislation that did manage to get through the stacked against it committee system?
  • Like refusing to require recorded votes in every committee to ensure cover for election time?
  • Like creating a literal back room for deal making during recent renovations?
  • Like ignoring a huge ethics issue with the Speaker and his lobbyist wife
  • Like expending money for golf courses and college quads over classroom funding for K-12?
  • Like letting Memphis legislators drive education policy for the whole state?
I'm sure others can quickly add to the list of abuses by the Democratically controlled legislature that were and have been bad for Tennesseans for some time. If the above weren't bad for Tennesseans---just what is?

5 comments:

The Sen. said...

600 Million not billion. All the rest is perfect. Good stuff!

Kay Brooks said...

Thanks for the correction. I appreciate it.

William said...

As an educator, how does it feel to be on the political side of the least educated among us, the party that has now fallen so far from the mainstream of America?

NYT:
Southern counties that voted more heavily Republican this year than in 2004 tended to be poorer, less educated and whiter, a statistical analysis by The New York Times shows. Mr. Obama won in only 44 counties in the Appalachian belt, a stretch of 410 counties that runs from New York to Mississippi. Many of those counties, rural and isolated, have been less exposed to the diversity, educational achievement and economic progress experienced by more prosperous areas. ... The Republicans, meanwhile, have “become a Southernized party,” said Thomas Schaller, a political scientist who teaches at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. “They have completely marginalized themselves to a mostly regional party,” he said, pointing out that nearly half of the current Republican House delegation is now Southern... Less than a third of Southern whites voted for Mr. Obama, compared with 43 percent of whites nationally.

Something to be proud of?

Kay Brooks said...

As an educator I'm more appalled that folks voted for undefined "hope and change".

Have you seen the maps for the presidential vote in Tennessee? If you want to call any group marginalized--it'd have to be the Obama voters.

Kay Brooks said...

Oh, and by the way, Professor, don't bother rerunning your blog posts here for wider viewership. Work out your Republican angst on your own site.