Here’s yet another reason to be disappointed in the former and yet another reason to avoid any artists associated with the latter: RIAA’s Ripoff Of Tennessee. Given the current desperate condition of Tennessee’s university system, the fact that Bredesen made a priority of this should be a source of profound shame for him — once again, he cast aside the needs of the citizens of his state for the sake of some antediluvian friends who are still stubbornly attempting to make a mid-20th-century business plan work in a digital world.
UPDATE: Guess what? Tennessee looking at HUGE tuition increases.
As you might have already predicted, like Liz, Sean and Michael, I was seriously displeased to find Phil Bredesen making kissy face with the liquor lobby.
Boo, Phil. Disappointing is becoming a real habit for you.
Meanwhile, while you’re shirking your unique responsibility to these pressing issues at home, you seem to have plenty of time on your hands for things that you have virtually no chance to affect, as you’ve spent much of the past two weeks being interviewed by national blow-dried TV pukes discussing your idea for a Democratic superdelegate convention. You’re a smart and overwhelmingly popular governor with nothing to lose, and yet you’re playing it safe. Or you just don’t care.
Yeah. You’re not exactly vice-presidential material, Phil.
That could clear the governor’s race for Lincoln Davis. And speaking of governors, wasn’t Bredesen’s name also tossed around in terms of VP? Adam seems to have missed that discussion.
We (all of us) killed a guy during the night — and we’re not even sure if he committed the crime for which he was executed. His name is Philip Workman and his last request was denied by prison officials.
For his last meal, Workman asked that a large vegetarian pizza be given to a homeless person. The prison officials denied his request, and Workman refused to eat anything.
These were his final words:
“I’ve prayed to the Lord Jesus Christ not to lay charge of my death to any man.” He then closed his eyes and about two minutes later said, “I commend my spirit into your hands, lord Jesus Christ.”
It apparently took Workman 17 minutes to die.
Almost all experts agree that from the time a person is paralyzed, he can feel everything, including the drowning in his own fluids and suffocation, but isn’t able to speak or even blink to let someone know he is feeling the torture.
Phil Bredesen, of course, could easily have stopped this. He is quite aware of the problems states have with lethal injections. Further, the state obviously knows we should be ashamed to be killing people — why else would we slink around during the dark of night as we inflict our feeble (and misdirected) revenge?
[T]he prosecuting D.A. and the victim’s daughter have pled for clemency because new evidence strongly suggests that the State of Tennessee just killed an innocent man.
May God have mercy on our souls.
It’s a target="_blank">small step, but at least it’s in the right direction!
Gov. Phil Bredesen said Thursday afternoon he has ordered a halt to all planned executions in the state for the next 90 days while there is a review of the method of execution.
This move will postpone four executions that were scheduled to take place in Tennessee in the next few months. With any luck, this “review” will turn into a longer moratorium.
719,000 Tennesseans are losing their healthcare!
Concerned Chattanoogans are meeting at Miller Park for a vigil on Sunday, July 31 at 7:30 p.m. Please bring a candle and signs.
Please come and show you care about healthcare!
… as I get caught up on my reading…
- Is there going to be a draft? In a way, there already is. Further, if you’re under 35 and a nurse, linguist, or someone with other specialized skills, you have special cause to be worried. At what point does an “all-volunteer army” cross the line and become more like a mercenary force? All this and thoughts about our anemic anti-war movement in an article from Rolling Stone.
- This is incredible. The Tennessee revenue stream and state budget are in a shambles, the governor is going to court in an effort to foist the cost of giving medical treatment to our poor onto local hospitals and governments, our schools are falling apart, and Chris Clem thinks the best course of action for our state is to dictate what may or may not be discussed in the classroom (full article after the jump because the TFP web site sucks). Heh. There’s a good one: republicans trying to protect people from “religious indoctrination.” And if colleges are forcing their liberal views on students, where are all these republicans coming from? Sorry, kiddies, but the main reason there aren’t more conservatives in higher ed is because there’s not enough money to be made there. (…which segues nicely into the next bullet…)
- And speaking of Horowitz (if you read the TFP article, anyway), check out this stunning demonstration of willful ignorance: “University professors are a privileged elite that work between six to nine hours a week, eight months a year for an annual salary of about $150,000, according to David Horowitz.” And this is the kind of idiocy Chris Clem aspires to? That claim is so obviously wrong that there’s no point in even bothering to refute it. It’s hard to believe anyone takes these morons seriously.
- I’ve been sitting on this one all week because I’ve been waiting for the public outcry and/or some media coverage of the story, but there’s been nothing but a bit of noise from a few bloggers. Condi Rice blatantly and shamelessly lied to the American people. Where is the outrage?
- The ground is shifting beneath Big Media as Soros and Buffet invest in cable.
- And just how pathetic is Brit Hume? Now he’s just making shit up. We expect that kind of crap from ideologues like William Bennett, but Hume is supposedly a journalist, isn’t he? Or perhaps he is yet another shill on the White House payroll? Hrmmm….
There’s an interesting juxtaposition of posts on Adam Groves today. First, Bredesen Calls Medicaid Socialism:
Speaking before the conference in Raleigh, North Carolina, Bredesen said, “The way in which Medicaid pays for services has more in common with a socialist economy than the commonsense economic and business principles that do such a good job allocating resources efficiently in other parts of our American life.”
And then Davis: Bredesen Can Be Beaten:
Calling Governor Phil Bredesen a “nice guy,” GOP Chairman Bob Davis quickly pointed out that he still thought the Governor could be beaten by the right GOP candidate [...].
Maybe the right republican candidate would be… Phil Bredesen.
I haven’t had a chance to read much since yesterday and have a lot of email and blogging to catch up on. In the meantime, here are a few stories I’ll be watching…
- Bubba is covering the Governor’s State of the State address, which was delivered last night. He’s got a link to the full text of the speech and promises video is coming soon.
- I’ve only caught a clip of this story from Aaron Brown, but apparently the Pope might be circling the drain?
- The State of the Union news cycle is beginnning. Is that speech going to take place tomorrow?
- And finally, a friend has recommended the lastest from William Rivers Pitt. Hopefully I’ll get to spend some time tomorrow seeing where he goes from this opening quote:
“United States officials were surprised and heartened today at the size of turnout in South Vietnam’s presidential election despite a Vietcong terrorist campaign to disrupt the voting. According to reports from Saigon, 83 percent of the 5.85 million registered voters cast their ballots yesterday. Many of them risked reprisals threatened by the Vietcong. A successful election has long been seen as the keystone in President Johnson’s policy of encouraging the growth of constitutional processes in South Vietnam.”
- Peter Grose, in a page 2 New York Times article titled, ‘U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote,’ September 4, 1967.
So, what have I missed?
A federal judge says that Bredesen can’t just decide to cut people from TennCare without first securing changes to consent decrees, according to the Tennessean:
The ruling puts on hold — at least temporarily — the governor’s plans to overhaul the $8.7 billion TennCare program. It comes three days before Bredesen is to deliver his State of the State address, in which he will outline his state budget priorities to lawmakers.
The KnoxNews is reporting that Bredesen “will proceed as planned” in the State of the State tomorrow and will present “a new state budget that counts on TennCare cuts.” Apparently Phil has a lot of confidence in the state’s legal team.
