There are better Southern legacies to celebrate than Dixie, and there are bigger battles to fight than the rebel flag
Fincher’s shift on Export-Import Bank — and loans — reviewed
Remembering the notorious Scopes 'Monkey Trial' on its 90th anniversary, and how a crafty PR stunt became a landmark battle of faith versus science
State Lawmaker Continues Battle With EPA
A state lawmaker under investigation by the EPA has been urging the state to sue the agency.Representative Andy Holt (R) Dresden, has been facing possible fines for pollution from his hog farm, but he has been among sixty state lawmakers who asked the attorney general to challenge the agency.
The letter from Holt and the other lawmakers has been seeking to block an EPA Clean Water Act rule that goes into effect next month.
Holt has been co-chair of the Agriculture Committee.
In April the EPA demanded that Holt schedule a meeting in which he or his attorneys explain why the EPA should not take formal civil action against him.
The EPA listed three different times in which Holt's Weakly County hog farm discharged hundreds of thousands of gallons from a lagoon full of hog manure into a nearby creek.
Pictures from a state investigation showed what one inspector called "serious violations."
In an interview earlier this year - Holt blasted the EPA and said he is now out of the hog business in part because of over regulation.
"The US EPA is an entity that I think has become very much politicized like the IRS," Holt said earlier this year.
On his website this week Holt said "The unconstitutional federal agency is out of control" and accused the EPA of targeting farmers.
Attorneys with the Southern Environmental Law Center think Holt could potentially benefit if the EPA rule were blocked.
The new rule clarified the Clean Water Act and how smaller streams and creeks should be protected from pollution.
"The creek that Mr. Holt dumped hog waste into eventually ends up in the Mississippi River," Attorney Beth Alexander said. LINK
Fincher’s shift on Export-Import Bank — and loans — reviewed
Bloomberg News makes the 8th District congressman from Frog Jump’s change of position — and ties to a farm equipment manufacturer — the centerpiece of an article on debate over renewal of the U.S. Export-Import Bank. It starts like this:Tennessee Congressman Stephen Fincher voted against renewing the U.S. Export-Import Bank three years ago. Today he is the chief Republican sponsor of U.S. House legislation to keep it alive.
Elected in 2010 as a small-government conservative, Fincher says that unlike other Tea Party members, he didn’t want to kill the agency but thought it “desperately needed” changes to limit taxpayers’ risk. After casting his no vote in 2012, he says he walked back to his office and told his staff he was determined to fix the bank to protect the U.S. jobs tied to it.
His shift illustrates the competing pressures on Republican lawmakers as Congress prepares to decide later this month whether to revive Ex-Im, whose charter expired June 30. They must choose between two of their party’s most important constituencies: activists who want to limit the government’s role in the economy and business leaders who see Ex-Im loans and loan guarantees as necessary to help U.S. firms compete overseas.
The longer Fincher, 42, served in Congress, the more likely it was he would become an Ex-Im backer, said Bradley Jackson, a vice president of the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce. Fincher’s Western Tennessee District includes ports, steelmakers, paper mills, medical device companies and the headquarters of Fed-Ex Corp., Jackson said.
“Time has allowed him to see a little bit more of who this helps, and all that,” Jackson said in a phone interview.
One of those helped by the bank in past years is farm equipment giant and Fincher campaign donor Deere & Co., based in Moline, Illinois. Fincher, a family farmer who still owns a stake in Fincher Farms in Halls, has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans for machines from Deere. LINK
There are better Southern legacies to celebrate than Dixie, and there are bigger battles to fight than the rebel flag
Today nearly every state in the South has publicly funded projects that promote Confederate iconography. These include properties emblazoned with the battle flag as well as highways, government buildings, state parks and university buildings named after Confederate generals and politicians. These Confederate renderings were approved by state law or policies, and at times the institutions that display them receive aid from the federal government — which many pro-Confederates interpret as authoritarian — in the form of tax subsidies, infrastructure improvements and environmental assistance.Also troubling is that Confederate iconography relies on historical reductionism, or an interpretation that defines the antebellum and Jim Crow South as redemptive and unreconstructed. This interpretation situates Campbell, Pinckney, Lawson and the civil rights movement as foreign to the Southern political tradition. But as Lawson recounted in his eulogy, and as President Barack Obama suggested in his tribute of Pinckney, these figures were just as critical in shaping the South's political culture as were segregationists and the Confederate flag.
Most supporters of the Confederate flag claim not to hold negative views of blacks and other nonwhites. Instead, they see the flag as a celebration of their Southern heritage. Yet there is a connection between heritage and hate and public policy. Numerous studies have found that support for the flag amplifies racial resentment. Researchers in a 2011 study published in the journal Political Psychology found that when white subjects were asked how they would vote for a hypothetical black candidate, they were much more likely to respond negatively when primed with a Confederate flag rather than a more neutral symbol.
Other studies indicate that racial resentment enhances negative attitudes about health care reform, anti-poverty programs and fair wage policies, all of which are assumed (sometimes incorrectly) to mostly improve the life circumstances of blacks. Thus there is a strong relationship between avid support for Confederate regalia, racial distrust and racially polarized views toward public policy. LINK
Remembering the notorious Scopes 'Monkey Trial' on its 90th anniversary, and how a crafty PR stunt became a landmark battle of faith versus science
For
one sweltering week in July 1925, the nation's newspapers and their
sharp-edged pundits, including the sharpest of them, H.L. Mencken,
focused on the small town of Dayton, Tenn. Ninety years ago come July
10, two of the 20th century's most famous lawyers — William Jennings
Bryan and Clarence Darrow — squared off in the Rhea County Courthouse
roughly two-and-a-half hours from Nashville in what is derisively
remembered as the "Monkey Trial." In a week's span, evolution vaulted to
front and center in the theological and biological debate of man's
primordial connection to primates.
That
debate persists today, as surely as the courthouse clock still chimes
the hour in Dayton. Much else has changed. Trains still come through
town on a daily basis, but these days the rattling boxcars only slow
down.That was not the case in 1925, when passenger service to Chattanooga ferried hundreds of reporters and spectators to the trial. Placid Dayton became a three-ring circus of litigation. Outside the courtroom, Bible salesmen fanned at the heat amongst atheist protestors, sidewalk evangelists, prayer meetings — even a trained chimpanzee. At the center of this carnival was John Thomas Scopes, a first-year teacher and football coach at Rhea County High School.
Scopes was 24 when he was thrust into the spotlight by a publicity stunt gone viral, early 20th century style. The controversy began in 1924, when John Washington Butler, a state representative from Macon County, learned that some Tennessee schools were teaching Darwinism. Butler, a Primitive Baptist, proposed the Butler Act, which prohibited the teaching of evolution.
The act made it unlawful to "teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals." Violation was a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of $100 to $500.
Three months after the act was introduced in January 1925, Gov. Austin Peay signed it into law. Shortly thereafter, the American Civil Liberties Union sought a test case, according to Tom Davis, president of the Rhea County Historical and Genealogical Society and a 30-year county resident. LINK
HUD secretary Julian Castro to visit Nashville
Julián Castro: U. S. HUD Secretary Julian Castro will speak at the Davidson Democratic Party’s Sixth Annual Honors Dinner on Friday, July 10, 2015.
In 2012, Castro came to national attention as the keynote speaker at the Democratic National Convention where his identical twin brother, U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro introduced him. The Mexican American Castro twins are the most prominent Hispanics on the national political stage. Nomination as a vice presidential running mate in 2016 just might be in the future for one of them.
“We are excited to not only welcome Julián Castro to the ‘It City,’ but also to recognize those individuals in our hometown who work tirelessly to make sure every citizen in Nashville is treated with dignity, honor and compassion each and every day,” said Daniel Horwitz, chairman of the Honors Dinner. “We’re proud to honor Nashville’s compassionate and engaged advocates.”
DCDP will honor Senator Emeritus Douglas Henry with a Lifetime Achievement Award in tribute to his lifelong commitment to the Democratic Party. Mayor Karl Dean will accept the George Barrett “Citizen” award, given annually for demonstrating exemplary service in fighting for the civil rights of Tennesseans. Also to be honored for their community leadership are State Rep. Jason Powell (Cecil Branstetter Award), Kim Troup (Inez Crutchfield Award) and Renato Soto (Jane Eskind Award).
“The collective contributions of these individuals cannot be overstated and we are proud to recognize their work,” said Gary Bynum, chairman of the Davidson County Democratic Party. LINK
Crockett Policy Institute
http://www.crockettpolicy.org/
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