GOP Debate: The Crazy...It Hurts!..More from Crockett

Ramsey Sees Cruz as Most Likely GOP Nominee

Carly Fiorina And Ted Cruz May Have Revealed Classified Information During GOP Debate (Wait...What is Carly Fiorina doing with classified information?)

Documents: Corker had more income than previously reported

 Documents released by the office of U.S. Sen. Bob Corker show the lawmaker earned millions more from investments than he originally reported.
According to media reports, Corker filed amendments late Friday to financial disclosures date back to 2007 and sent a letter to the secretary of the Senate blaming “technical errors” by his former accounting firm. He said the “oversight” has been corrected.
A government watchdog group that filed a complaint last month over other omissions on Corker’s financial disclosure forms said it plans to file another complaint asking the Senate Ethics Committee and the Justice Department to investigate. WATE

GOP Debate Analysis: New Fights Emerge as Leading Candidates Try Ignoring Donald Trump

onfronted with the durable phenomenon known as Donald Trump, the leading Republican presidential candidates tried a new tack Tuesday night: ignore him.
Trump didn’t go anywhere, of course. Attacks did flow in from candidates who found themselves farther from center stage than ever -– including, notably, Jeb Bush.
But it’s as if his front-running status is so familiar that his rivals for the most part chose not to fight him, as the race settles into its lanes. At a tense time in the nation, attention turned to once familiar –- even old-school -– arguments inside the Republican Party.
A scattered debate that focused almost exclusively on foreign policy and national security revealed tension between the GOP’s hawkish and libertarian strains, its Senate and gubernatorial leaders, and two first-term senators who may well be the last Republican candidates standing.
The most tense exchanges pitted Ted Cruz against Marco Rubio, the onetime allies who now see themselves as each other’s most serious rival. Rubio attacked Cruz for supporting an end to surveillance programs and limiting defense spending, while Cruz hit Rubio hard over immigration. ABC News

No bids received for TN state parks outsourcing

Republican Gov. Bill Haslam’s effort to outsource hospitality operations at 11 state parks has failed to draw any interest from private vendors.
Haslam has long said park services like restaurants, golf courses, inns and marinas are prime examples of areas where private vendors could do a better and cheaper job than state government.
The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation earlier this month requested $55 million to upgrade facilities at parks before operations could be handed over to private vendors. But at least one of the three companies that had expressed interest in a bid dropped out over uncertainty about whether lawmakers would approve the money.
Brock Hill, a deputy commissioner of the Environment and Conservation Department, told reporters after budget hearings earlier this month that vendors who toured the parks were “shocked, to some degree, that they were in as bad shape as they were.” Humphrey on the Hill

Ramsey Sees Cruz as Most Likely GOP Nominee

Before you sit down tonight with your popcorn and peach schnapps to watch the last GOP presidential debate of the year, how about a little political analysis from our very own Ron Ramsey?

Asked to talk about the Republican campaign, Ramsey held forth last week at one of his regular meetings with the Nashville media. The Senate speaker, who personally hasn’t gotten behind anyone, says he thinks the race is down to two candidates: Donald Trump and Ted Cruz—and Ramsey’s money is on Cruz.

People are sick and tired of political correctness. They’re not for Donald Trump per se. They’re for somebody who’s finally speaking their mind and not calculating every word that comes out of their mouth. I don’t know that he ends up winning the nomination. If I had to bet I would not think so.  Pith in the Wind

The Ugliness of White Privilege

Another mis-statement is the idea that we’re a nation of laws and those laws are applied equally.
Racial profiling is a thing…even though lots of folks like to pretend it isn’t.
At my previous job, one of my co-workers was stopped on his way to work every night for weeks even though he wasn’t speeding or breaking any traffic laws.
He wasn’t given a ticket. He wasn’t given a reason. He was being stopped because he was a black man driving a ‘too nice’ car at 3:30am on his way to a 4am shift.
That’s the reality we live in. He was stopped by police officers, black and white, because he was black man out in the early morning hours of a weeknight and because of this, he must be up to no good.
I was never stopped once in the three years I worked there, even though I had the same hours, and regularly broke traffic laws in the sight of police. Some people might say I was lucky or he is unlucky. I don’t believe that. This is the definition of systemic racism…
Its easy to assume that, because a car is stopped, or a police officer is talking to someone, that they’ve done something wrong. We do this all the time. The media reinforces it continuously. But in doing this, we also ignore that not just in Memphis, but in America, black people are targeted based on their race. It is the nature of stop and frisk policing techniques and many others.
So while it may be true to say ‘we are a nation of laws, and a legal system’, it is also true to say those laws, and that legal system is in no way applied equally.
Failing to acknowledge this is willful ignorance. VIBINC

Carly Fiorina And Ted Cruz May Have Revealed Classified Information During GOP Debate

During a heated exchange in which Ted Cruz was defending a vote he made in favor of the USA Freedom Act, the Texas Tea Party Senator blew up at fellow Senator Marco Rubio, who accused him of voting for a bill that shut down the NSA's metadata program, "a valuable tool that we no longer have at our disposal," the Florida Senator accused.
Cruz then went off.
After accusing Rubio of making "knowingly false" and "Alinsky-like attacks like Barack Obama," Cruz retorted, defending the reason for his vote as "simple."
"What [Rubio] knows is that the old program covered 20 percent to 30 percent of phone numbers to search for terrorists," Cruz countered. "The new program covers nearly 100 percent. That gives us greater ability to stop acts of terrorism, and he knows that that’s the case."
Rubio, who sits on the U.S. Senate's Intelligence Committee, interjected nervously.
"Let me be very careful when answering this, because I don’t think national television in front of 15 million people is the place to discuss classified information. So let me just be very clear. There is nothing that we are allowed to do under this bill that we could not do before."
Roll Call just after the debate finished, posted an article asking, "Did Sen. Ted Cruz disclose classified information on national television?," and notes that "As the exchange happened, Becca Glover Watkins, the communications director for Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard M. Burr, R-N.C., tweeted simply: 'Cruz shouldn’t have said that.'" The New Civil Rights Movement




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