TSA Gropes a 3 year old

As a parent, watching this makes me furious. I do not think I could have stood by and watched someone do this to my child. This is ridiculous. When the first 3 year old non-Arab blows up a plane, I'll eat crow, but until then, how about we focus on searching the people that we KNOW are our enemies?

Beth Harwell is New TN Speaker of the House

Well, not officially, but it is a done deal. On Twitter, Chas Sisk says that the Republican caucus will not release the breakdown of the votes. My question is, "why not?" Do they fear the Tea Party and the gun rights advocates? Are they concerned that if word got out of who voted for her, Tea Partiers and gun rights advocates would target them in primaries?

Well, thanks Republicans for showing no transparency at all. This is an important vote and you are hiding the ball. WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO HIDE? I want to know if my representative represented my interests. So, man up, Scotty Campbell. Tell us how you voted. Or are you stuck under a oath of secrecy? My guess is, considering Mr. Campbell's relationship with the disgraced former Republican Kent Williams, that he supported Harwell. That will be my assumption unless he tells us otherwise.

Here's a message to you if you get too far off track: We are watching you. We have the Internet. We will not forget. The chickens will come home to roost. If you get too far off the reservation, we will work our butts off to see you out of office in a couple of years. We don't care about your party.

More American Recovery Act Waste

Here are some photos from downtown Bristol, TN. First, there is the huge sign with the taxpayer funded "O", to remind us that King Barry is providing us with this (let's not forget that).


Then, it is time to take a look at the project:


In short, this is a red light project. Or, as the "shovel-ready" folks like to say, an "intersection infrastructure improvement project." One photo shows the wires on the ground and the other photo shows both the old and the new red lights. As you can see from the photo, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the old red lights. They work fine. I pass through this intersection periodically and have never seen a malfunction. The new red lights are on the large black bars. You can see one of them on the upper left and another bar can be seen just behind the old red lights.

What will happen to these perfectly decent red lights that are being removed? They will likely be tossed in a landfill. Why should we remove perfectly usable infrastructure and replace it with something else, just to "make jobs" for people. This is incredibly wasteful. We don't need to be spending money to fix things that are not broken.

This isn't the second time I've seen junk like this. Last summer, I saw a perfectly fine that was being repaved. There was no reason that I could see to repave the road. It was probably at least 5 years away from needing paving.

Why does our government continue to blow money like this? And they think they know how to better spend my money than I do. Good grief.

A Plea to Indonesia - Please Take Him Back

With all the accomplishments of King Barry, don't you think you should consider keeping him over there a while? After all, he knows the language, has a great affinity for Islam and is a former resident. With your history of political, economic and social instability, Mr. Obama is sure to have a government solution to all of your problems. Please make him welcome there.

King Barry Goes Home

King Barry's old digs in Indonesia look much the same as they did when he was there in his youth, back when he was known as "Barry."

Kent Williams to Support Beth Harwell for Speaker

Well, it's official that Kent Williams won't be running for speaker of the Tennessee House. He says he is going to support Beth Harwell. Ah, Kent won't run because he knows he'll get spanked, so I naturally must inquire about his reasons for supporting Beth Harwell.

It seems the two have quite the history. She moved to get the ethics complaint against him dismissed (an ethics complaint which, according to the blog post, was "for telling Rep. Susan Lynn that he’d give a week’s pay to see her naked"). She opposed Williams' removal from the Republican party, to no avail. But more offensive to me, she voted against overriding the governor's veto of the law that allows concealed handgun permit holders to carry their guns in restaurants that serve alcohol. On top of that, she has "supported" Democrats in recent election. That is no way to advance a conservative agenda.

Sounds to me like Beth Harwell is a bad idea for Speaker of the House. The support from Kent Williams is enough to make me doubt her, but when you look at the rest of the story, it is certainly troubling. You know full well that Kent Williams' support is all about Kent Williams. My guess is that he is thinking that if he supports her, she will bless him with a nice committee assignment. It wouldn't surprise me if he already had a "back room" deal with her. After all, his election to Speaker came as a result of a "back room" deal with Democrats. Without someone like Harwell to scratch his back, he will be powerless and ineffectual in Nashville, as he should be.

Sometimes the Scum Rises to the Top

Usually, the "cream rises to the top." It looks like that in Carter County, the scum has risen to the top this time, with disgraced former Republican Kent Williams being re-elected to the Tennessee House. WJHL just reported that Williams said that he didn't think he would be chosen again as Speaker of the House. Well.....duh.

Jerome Cochran reportedly stated that he had no other political aspirations. Well, that's probably a good thing. Mr. Cochran is a very nice, upstanding guy. I have a lot of respect for him, but I think he has a difficult time connecting with the voters in Carter County. Of course, Mr. Cochran also had to run against the constant pro-Williams bias of the Elizabethton Star and the Johnson City [de]Press[ed]. I seldom read the dePressed, because I refuse to give my money to such a leftist newspaper. I read the Star on occasion, and it seems that they were relentless in their positive exposure for Williams and in their negative exposure for Cochran. I have no idea if the Star endorsed a candidate, but they didn't need to. Their support for Williams was obvious from the content of its stories.

Carter County needs a strong conservative to step forward to defeat Kent Williams in the next election. I predict that the need for that will become more apparent during this term for Williams. His day in the sun is over. He will be relegated to nothingness in Nashville as he is a man without a party. Carter County will pay the price for sending him back to Nashville, as I predict he will be completely ineffectual.

A Vote for America

Well, it is clear now that Brandon Dodds did not win the Tennessee governor's race. That's not a shock to me. But I am glad that my vote went to someone who seems to be doing fine in life without a mega-rich father (as far as I know) to put him in charge of a successful business. The same can't be said for either Mike McWherter or Bill Haslam.

Folks, as long as we keep voting on party lines, we are going to get people who are all about power and money. I'm proud to have placed at least one vote for someone who doesn't appear to have those two things as his agenda.

The Shifting CBS News House Projection

At 10:00 or so, Katie Couric stated that CBS projected that Republicans would ultimately gain 44 seats in the house. By 10:30, she stated that CBS projects that Republicans would ultimately win at least 50 seats. Wonder where the projections will end up?

Rick Boucher loses in Virginia

Rick Boucher (D) has lost his seat in southwest Virginia. That is one "change" for which we can thank King Barry. I can not tell you how many times I heard Mr. Obama say "I looooove Rick Boucher." King Barry is probably so full of himself that he thought all of those commercials that included the "I love Rick Boucher" line were for Boucher. After all, who would go against the king? Oh yeah, most of the electorate if you look at tonight's early results.

Hey King Barry! How 'bout some more change like the involuntary retirement of Rick Boucher? That's CHANGE I can believe in!

Exercise Your Rights or Lose Them

Every year at election time, we hear about how important it is to exercise your right to vote. Some would even say that you have a civic duty to do so. So today, I am reminding you to exercise your right to keep and bear arms. The civic duty associated with exercising your 2nd amendment rights is no less important than exercising the civic duty to vote.

So go out and buy a gun. If you already have enough guns, buy some ammo. If you already have plenty of guns and ammo, go to the range and improve your skills.