Buzz for 3-2-15

Pat Nolan: Guns in Parking Lots Redux

Bid to Block Health Exchange in Tennessee Seen as 'Overkill'

First week of winter storm cost TDOT $11.3M; overall impact now being assessed

Roy Exum: Cameras Or Subterfuge?

Rep. Van Huss praying for recognition of ‘Almighty God’ in TN constitution

State Rep. James “Micah” Van Huss, R-Jonesborough, talks with the Johnson City Pressabout sponsoring HJR71, which proposes to amend the Tennessee constitution to add this sentence:
“We recognize that our liberties do not come from governments, but from Almighty God, our Creator and Savior.”
”I’m praying about it,“ Van Huss said.
…The reason Van Huss says he sees this as a positive course for action has everything to do with trends he sees across the country.
“As a nation, we are drifting from the morals of our founding, and I think it’s important to reaffirm that our liberties do not come from the King of England,” Van Huss said. “They do not come from Barack Obama. They come from God.”
The Tennessee Republican also showed appreciation across the aisle and finds himself in agreement with the words used by President John F. Kennedy in his 1961 inaugural address, when he said “the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.”
On his website, Van Huss says he’s a ”born-again Bible-believing Christian,“ and that he graduated from Pensacola Christian College in 2003, with a bachelor’s degree in computer science.
…Hedy Weinberg, executive director of the ACLU of Tennessee, said politicians should stay out of religious decisions for Tennesseans. LINK

First week of winter storm cost TDOT $11.3M; overall impact now being assessed

The first week of February’s winter storm weather cost the Tennessee Department of Transportation more than $11 million and that’s just the beginning as officials calculate the impact with an eye toward seeking federal disaster aid, reports the Commercial Appeal.
Gov. Bill Haslam, the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency and other state agencies say cost estimates haven’t been compiled, but the Tennessee Department of Transportation, or TDOT, reported Friday that its costs totaled nearly $11.3 million in labor, equipment and material for anti-icing, de-icing, plowing snow and other activities for the first week of the bad weather.
“All of our regions are still tabulating overtime, equipment, supply use for this week,” TDOT spokeswoman B.J. Doughty said. “Potholes is another matter entirely — and I don’t have that yet.”
While all the emergency work costs money, the state — and local governments in hard-hit areas — may also take a hit in their sales tax revenue during February: many shopping centers simply closed when the streets were iced over and those that opened were virtually devoid of shoppers. LINK

Bid to Block Health Exchange in Tennessee Seen as 'Overkill'

Some Republican lawmakers still reveling in the recent defeat of a proposal to expand Medicaid to 280,000 low-income Tennesseans are now setting their sights on 230,000 people enrolled through the federal health insurance exchange.
State Sen.
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Brian Kelsey's latest proposal would ban Tennessee from creating a state-run exchange should the Supreme Court rule that the federal government can't pay subsidies in states that declined to set up their own insurance markets. Oral arguments in that case are scheduled for March 4. LINK

Pat Nolan: Guns in Parking Lots Redux

Everyone remembers the protracted political controversy that occurred a few years ago when legislators debated (and ultimately approved) a new law to allow gun permit holders to bring their weapons to work and store them in their cars and trucks.
Now a new piece of legislation seems ready to reignite that debate. The Tennessee Chamber of Commerce and Business is concerned about HB 994 and HB 202. The business group is concerned because the bill mandates “an employer can't take an adverse employment action against an employee who is a permit holder (and) who stores their weapon in a parked vehicle on company property.”
In an e-mail to Chambers members the group says the bill “goes well beyond the issue of gun ownership and creates a broad exemption in Tennessee's right to work status creating a protected class of employee within Tennessee's 6 million population.” The Chamber e-mail adds: “The Chamber's research has not found any other state that has gone this far to protect gun owners in employment law situations nor is there any documentation where an employee has been unfairly disciplined for storing a weapon on company property.”
The Chamber is asking its supporters to express these concerns by contacting members of the House Civil Justice Subcommittee which will consider the measures on Wednesday afternoon, March 4. LINK

Haslam Says Common Core a Standard, Not Ideology

Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam said the Tennessee legislature’s discussion and coming vote about the state’s public education standards is “critically important.”
And while Haslam has said several times that the term for those existing standards – Common Core – has become too politically charged to continue to be used, he added last week in Memphis that the standards under review are “very specific academic oriented standards.”
“This is not curriculum,” he said Thursday, Feb. 26. “It’s not ideology. It’s what we’re expecting kids to know.” LINK

Roy Exum: Cameras Or Subterfuge?

Some believe the better reason is because Holt has a colorful history of dodging permits and alleged violations. Both the EPA and the state say they are still investigating numerous allegations. That may be because Holt sponsored the infamous “AgGag Bill” of 2013 that would criminalize anyone who made an undercover video of criminal activity on a farm like the one that starred flagrant horse abuser Jackie McConnell.
Governor Haslam finally vetoed the controversial bill and last year he vetoed another bill by Holt. That bill would – get this -- reduce penalties on those who pollute streams and the environment. Wow, and he claims to be a deacon in a Baptist church. What is troubling is that Holt was able to get the state legislature to accept both bills and he has the moxie to make the traffic camera bill into law.
Gardenhire, in the eyes of many, has become something of a school-yard bully. After noted physician Phyllis Miller spoke to him about Erlanger’s problems, he called the highly-respected physician and asked her to resign from the board. He later explained he was simply “trying to hit a mule in the head with a two-by-four to get its attention” but the repugnant action made Gardenhire more closely resemble the cousin of a Mexican burro than the popular surgeon who is very much a lady and a physician.
Todd also tried to block Jennifer Stanley’s re-appointment to the Erlanger board when the truth is the former Rhodes Scholar is considered to be “the MVP” by the other members of Erlanger’s board of trustees. A hospital trustee is a totally volunteer job – Stanley is paid nothing – and the firestorm Gardenhire caused, and Commissioner Tim Boyd aided, was not just inexcusable but a horrible reflection on both politicians. Boyd has since apologized for his contentious remarks in the media.
Gardenhire’s crazy rant over Insure Tennessee made him out to be a bigger dolt after it was discovered he had state insurance coverage — along with five other lawmakers of the seven who stopped the plan – and his suggestion that public schools be forced to pay the cost of remedial classes for college students who aren’t prepared sounds nice until you realize where the money to fund our public schools “really” comes from. LINK




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