Letters to the Editor

Good letter's Paul and Barbara both.

Uh... Jefferson lost his reelection bid to a Vietnamese refugee. Also, Stevens lost to Begich.If 'All politics is local', it seems that the locals in those areas have more sense than other places.

barb, the bunker is being built by funds from private donations so the tax argument is mute. Although if you think about it, there are many other reasons why it shouldn't be built!

Good morning!Great cartoon this morning. The gov of Illinois is great fooder for late night talk. I'm waiting to see what else the master criminal has done.

Maybe Makmooud (sic) or whatever his name is in Iran is right. The Islamists are waiting for our country to implode and we seem to be doing just that.

The bunker is a good idea. Where else are they going to hide when we revolt?

I think of all the Dems... Gov. Phil will be pretty safe.

TungstenCarbide: Why don't you and the other literary geniuses who parade their collective vomit in these pages submit something relevant to topics in today's reality except the usual chatter amonst each other concerning one's self what fertilizer to use so your spring lawn doesn't get any dandelions?

Yet you hang out here daily, Dargent. What's a matter, the neighbor's cat not putting out?

gd: Unless you use a different name, you, as well as the other wind bag blowhards, don't ever get anything published, in either paper.Just are relegated to this b.s. posting, sharing Martha Stewart's receipes for bunt cake.

Dargent, I don't judge my existence based on how many letters I get published (I don't write any, either). In fact, it's probably the LEAST important thing I can think of.

gd: Being from Detroit, if I'm not running numbers, influence peddling, jury tampering, racketeering, engaging in Ponzi schemes, drugs running, prostitution, extorsion, bribery, and other assorted scandals invented by Italians, I'm bored. (did I miss anything?) That's why I post to you idiots.

“Idiots”? Redneck clichés? What’s you f’ing problem dude? If De-troit is so much better than Nashville then, by all means, I encourage you to go back.

I like Bredesen. I didn't vote for him the first time but I did the second time.

We agree Ben, I did too. And, he saved the Preds...lol

"We agree Ben, I did too. And, he saved the Preds..."Yeah... the carpet-bagger he is. What should we expect. lol

Term Limits is the answer Loner.Then, if they have pushed to serve out the entire limit, hang'um

I have a bit of an aversion to term limits because that's what the voters should do is limit terms and root out the losers.That's not what happens in practice though because of incumbent power so I'm not sure what the solution is.

Iraq's government functions much more like England's parlimentary system than our Constitutional Republic.

Ben, I dispute your underlying premises, you wrote, “Without it (the Electoral College) the candidates would make a sweep of L.A, New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Miami, Houston, et al... and rural values would be flushed down the toilet. The EC is doing what it is supposed to do, protect the interests of smaller states because, thankfully, America is not a democracy but a representative republic of democratic states.”Ben, you are still echoing the discredited idea that state’s rights trump individual rights, that argument was settled in 1865, and reaffirmed in 1964 (Voter’s Rights Act etc.) Under the current situation, the all or none tradition, millions of individual voters have their votes completely nullified by the majority vote, no matter how slim the majority. In states like New York, upstate voters tend to vote Republican, but the cities tend to vote Democratic. Millions of upstate New Yorkers feel disenfranchised and many are so disillusioned that they simply don’t vote.In the deep red states, like TN, Democrats in the cities and in the rural areas feel disenfranchised, they know that the popular vote for President and Vice President is meaningless.Perhaps you have not noticed, Ben but we now refer to the United States of America as a singular proper noun – for example, we can say “The United States leads the world in consumer consumption.” We would not say, “The United States lead the world in consumer consumption. I know that you are a secessionist, Ben, but that romantic notion is not an option today.

Let's cut out the largely non-value-added federal government and let the necessary government grow from the bottom up at the city and state level where the people have a greater say.

As screwed up as Tennessee government is and Ben wants to stand alone? I hope you are jokeing. We would be overtaken by Georgia. They want our water.

Ben, what are you smokin’? It seems that you don’t agree with the “One nation…. Indivisible” part of the Pledge of Allegiance. Over 618,000 soldiers and sailors died in the War Between the States, do you have contempt for their sacrifice? United, we stand – divided, we are toast.Gotta go now, I posted a new journal entry dedicated to this board; here's the URL:http://new-york-loner.livejournal.com/21239.htmlPlease visit and chat.

By: girliegirl on 12/12/08 Ok, in defense of Bredesen... The man bleeds "frugal" blood, seriously, as I've witnessed him shopping in the past. He compares pricing, availability, and then surfs the NET for a better deal. Or at least that was what he did back a few years ago. At least he's not selling a Senate seat on Ebay...yet~ ...girliegirl:You saw the governor spending his OWN MONEY not OUR money. There seems to be a big difference. First off, he managed to spend, with the help of some local governments in Hamilton county, $577 million dollars on 13,477 jobs(according to Dr, Fox). That represents the loss of all manufacturing jobs in the state of Tennessee for a period of about 471 days. These jobs won't be on line until at least 2011. More manufacturing jobs will be lost while we are waiting than will be gained by the subsidy. The governors Department of Economic and Community Development is claiming to have created about 3 out of every 8 jobs in the state since 2003. Some of the "created" jobs were just moved around from some where else like Anaheim, California. He decided to skip the legal requirements to get a legal subsidy for the headquarters move in the case of VW and just by a wave of a hand treat the movement of anyone into the VW plant as if it were a headquarters move. Nothing on a federal, state or local level has ever stopped or slowed down the loss of industrial jobs since 1979. No subsidy or special privilege like being able to condemn land for industrial purposes and alleged industrial purposes has stopped the job losses in this sector of the economy.One of the justifications for building this party bunker was so the wining and dining to put together deals like the VW subsidy fiasco could be facilitated. This governor has presided over the greatest waste of local tax money in the US by approving every local effort to buy speculative real estate for the next whiz bang industrial park. There are at least 86 square miles of these speculative land deals on the state web site, all with government money financing them. Local Governments are spending at least $33 million per year just in payments for the land. There are over 78 million square feet of empty industrial or warehouse floor space being advertised by the state as possible locations for the next factory.This money could go to traditional public safety or education instead. If a Republican Governor allowed this they would say he was against the children.

Only since the 14th amendment has the US government has supremacy over the states, loner. This amendment, with the stated intention of assuring ex-slaves a representative voice, has been exploited to enforce federal legislation over the once-sovereign states. This combined with the 16th amendment has undone much very careful intention by the founders to limit the federal government's scope and power.