Crockett News Buzz 6-13-14

From: Crockett Policy Institute
http://www.crockettpolicy.org/ Crockett Policy Institute · 

Police say 2 boys planned mass shooting at Tennessee school

Two boys have been arrested for allegedly plotting t0 carry out a mass shooting at a high school in Tennessee, authorities said Thursday.
The youths allegedly were planning an attack at Volunteer High School in Rogersville in Hawkins County, CBS affiliate WJHL reported.
The boys, whose names and ages were not released, face conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and other charges, the station said.
Assistant District Attorney Ryan Blackwell said a detention hearing was held for both boys and it's possible the case could be transferred to adult court. Click Here For More

In wake of Cantor defeat, Tea Party sets sights on Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander

- Steve Osborn thinks there are a lot of messages to be found in House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s stunning defeat by a tea party challenger in Virginia’s primary election on Tuesday, but the most jarring one for politicians just might be this:
“The grass-roots can actually swing an election, regardless of the money the GOP throws at them,” said Osborn, chairman of the Sevier County Tea Party in East Tennessee.
Cantor’s loss to political novice David Brat confounded the nation’s campaign cognoscenti and left many wondering whether it should be interpreted as a warning sign to other establishment Republicans facing their own re-election battles.
Cantor’s downfall, coupled with U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran being forced into a primary run-off against a tea party challenger in Mississippi, could energize Tennessee’s tea party movement, which has set its sights on another high-profile target, U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander. Click Here For More

At Bergdahl Hearing, Jim Cooper Blasts ‘Prosecutorial’ Republicans, Asks About Notice

Nashville’s Democratic congressman blasted his Republican colleagues, during a hearing on the deal to swap five Taliban prisoners for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. Jim Cooper told colleagues on the House Armed Services Committee that thought the hearing had become too partisan.
Cooper begged his GOP colleagues to drop “prosecutorial questioning” of Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, and focus instead on what he saw as most important issue: why the Obama Administration didn’t give 30 days notice to the House Armed Services Committee:
“Does the Commander in Chief, any Commander in Chief of either party, have the right to take action when time requires it to protect the life of a serviceman to perhaps circumvent 30 day notice requirements to this body?”
Many members of the committee asked different versions of that same question, since negotiations over Bergdahl’s release had been going on for years. In response to Cooper, Pentagon lawyer Stephen Preston said Bergdahl’s life was in danger, and there was a fleeting opportunity to negotiate his release. Click Here For More

The political center is shrinking. Here’s proof

Among voters, the ideological gap is increasingly large across a wide array of issues. The two sides differ greatly on whether government regulation does more harm than good; 68 percent of Republicans agree, while just 29 percent of Democrats concur, a gap that’s grown from 18 points in 1994 to 39 points today.
The gap between Democrats and Republicans who say government is almost always wasteful and inefficient has grown from 15 points in 1994 to 35 points today. And the gap between Democrats and Republicans who say government can’t afford to do much to help the needy has spiked from 21 points in 1994 to 39 points today. Click Here For More

State revenues down again in May

Still struggling to recover from months of lower-than-expected state tax collections, the state fell $40 million short in revenues last month.
Finance and Administration Commissioner Larry Martin blamed May’s drop on a legal change in the timing of business tax payments and on the payment of a large sales tax settlement.
“Tennessee’s sales tax collections continue to reflect a slow recovery from the recession, and require us to closely monitor collections and expenditures for the remainder of this year to end with a balanced budget,” Martin said in a department press release.
With two months left in the state’s budget year, Tennessee is $222 million in the hole this fiscal year, the department reported Wednesday. The projected drop led Gov. Bill Haslam and lawmakers to cut more than $300 million from this and next year’s state spending plans this spring to fill the gap, causing him to eliminate plans to offer teachers raises and give new money to higher education, among other cuts. Click Here For More

Corker offers more defense for VA vote

Republican Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee offered a further defense Thursday for being one of only three senators this week to oppose a bill seeking to bolster veterans’ health care.
It was a sign of the political sensitivity surrounding veterans’ issues because of the recent scandal at the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Corker joined fellow Republican Sens. Jeff Sessions of Alabama and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin on Wednesday in voting against legislation to improve veterans’ medical treatment by allowing them to seek care from private doctors. It also enables the VA to move quickly to fire employees for poor performance.
The Senate approved the measure 93-3. Sen. Lamar Alexander, also a Republican, was among those voting for it. A similar bill passed the House earlier this week, with all nine members from Tennessee voting yes.
In initial comments after the vote, Corker said the bill was too hastily drafted and the method of paying for it was inadequate. He said it would increase the deficit by at least $35 billion. Click Here For More

Lawmakers Meet In Effort To Revise The US Constitution

A small but determined group of state lawmakers from some 30 states gathered in Indiana Thursday to lay the groundwork for something that has not happened since 1787 in Philadelphia: a convention to revise the U.S. Constitution.
The bar they would have to clear -- winning approval from 34 state legislatures -- seems impossibly high, but the group of roughly 100 legislators, most of them Republicans, is pressing on.
Fueling them is a firm belief that the federal government is increasingly overstepping its bounds and has forgotten that it was the states which gave it life at the birth of the United States, not the other way around. Click Here For More

What if your cell phone buzzed every time someone gave your congressman a ton of money?

Here is an intriguing idea for one that would: Sunlight is pushing a bill, introduced earlier this spring in the Senate by Angus King (I-Maine) and in the House by Beto O'Rourke (D-Tex.), that would get us much closer to real-time disclosure of political contributions. In place of quarterly reports, it would require public disclosure of hard-money contributions within 48 hours of the moment when candidates, committees or political parties receive donations of a $1,000 or more.
This is a potentially powerful idea for at least two reasons. For one, timeliness makes this information even more valuable, because timingitself is information.
"Certainly it helps connect the dots on public policy," Rosenberg says, "if these large contributions are coming in right before a hearing, and you can see that an industry representative has an interest in that hearing, whether it's a tax bill, or an immigration bill, whatever it is."
Current law requires 48-hour disclosure of large contributions within the last 20 days before an election (although right now, super PACS get a reprieve from this pesky requirement in the final 48 hours). The Real Time Transparency Act would extend that window throughout the year. Which leads us to the second reason why this idea could be powerful: Require constant disclosure like this, at all times, and you make possible the kind of digital tools Kennedy seemed to vaguely imagine. Click Here For More


Crockett Policy Institute
http://www.crockettpolicy.org/ Crockett Policy Institute ·