Brentwood-based Core Civic Urges ICE to Buy Detention Facilities Now, Before Dems Take Office

by Rod Williams, Nov. 11, 2026 - Brentwood-based CoreCivic's CEO, Lucibeth Mayberry, has urged ICE to finalize detention-center contracts quickly before a newly elected Democratic majority in Congress takes office. She said ICE needs detention capacity and CoreCivic has facilities available.

As all know by now, Republicans got an historical ass-kicking in the midterms. There were multiple reasons for it, but the election was a referendum on Donald Trump. People voted as if he were on the ballot. While exit polls showed corruption and the cost of living as the two main factors motivating people to vote the way they did, it appears there was a general revulsion toward Donald Trump. Part of that was his immigration policy.  Once the issue generated the most favorable ratings for Donald Trump. Recent polling data shows public disapproval. The RealClearPolitics polling average from late October 2026 showed 43.1% approval and 54.2% disapproval of his handling of immigration. 

The murder by ICE agents of Alex Pettie and Renea Good in Minneapolis in January 2026 drew widespread public revulsion and became a defining moment in the public’s reaction to Trump's immigration policy and concerns about federal use of force and accountability. Also, the separation of families and deporting immigrants to hell-hole countries that were not the immigrants' country of origin, the rounding up of one's neighbors, co-workers, service people with whom one did business, and the general cruelty of the mass deportation process, and the demonizing of immigrants caused people to view Trump's immigration policy less favorably. 

President Trump has sent mixed signals since the election, suggesting at one point that detention and deportation policies may have been "too tough," while simultaneously promoting immigration-policy architect Stephen Miller and retaining officials who say deportations will continue.

CoreCivic has done well under Trump's deportation regime. It made a lot of money, including about $1.3 billion in the most recent quarter from selling four detention centers to the Department of Homeland Security as immigrant detention expanded nationwide. The company is seeking additional sales of detention facilities to ICE and said discussions about further acquisitions are underway, though still preliminary.

Democrats have campaigned on increased oversight of ICE and have pledged investigations and scrutiny of detention practices and immigration enforcement. CoreCivic and ICE have faced criticism over detention conditions and enforcement policies. There have been allegations involving poor or unsafe conditions at detention centers and controversy surrounding facility purchases.  An example, cited in a Tennessee Lookout article, highlighted a Minnesota detention facility that CoreCivic reportedly offered to sell to the state for $75 million in 2025, but which ICE later purchased for $485.6 million. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison has called for a congressional investigation into the transaction.

I look forward to the investigation of ICE, and I also want to know if any of Trump's family and friends are lining their own pockets by the imprisonment of immigrants. There will be investigations into the functioning of ICE. I would not be surprised if some do not go to jail. If CoreCivic has made kickbacks, either directly or under the table by buying meme coins or through contributions to build the ballroom or whatever, it will likely be exposed. A last-ditch effort by ICE to shovel money out the door will likely not help anyone avoid accountability. 

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Trump Says No One Can Believe 2026 Election Was Honest

by Rod Williams, Nov. 11, 2026- In his final days, Adolf Hitler huddled in his bunker with his closest
advisors, persisting in giving impossible military orders and refusing to acknowledge defeat. He ordered non‑existent divisions to counterattack, denied the Soviet advance, and insisted on staying in Berlin even as its fall was inevitable. I think we are seeing the same kind of reaction from Trump. Not that I think Trump is as evil as Hitler or as crazy as Hitler was in his final days, but then again there is not as much at stake for Trump as there was for Hitler. I think we are seeing a similar type of delusion. 

If the Hitler comparison is too strong, recall the gentler story of the young boy who pointed out the king was not wearing clothes. In the story, the emperor is obsessed with new, flashy clothing and spends his treasury on them. Two impostors claim to weave fabric invisible to anyone who is “simple in the head” or unfit for their job. The emperor orders the “clothes” woven, and the weavers pretend to create the clothing. Ministers and officials, afraid to be seen as foolish, pretend to admire the “clothes,” and the emperor himself, also vain, pretends to be dressed, then parades through the city. The townspeople go along, afraid to appear incompetent, and then a small child, free from fear of judgment, shouts that the emperor is wearing nothing at all. The crowd realizes the truth, and the emperor tries to maintain dignity by continuing the procession despite being naked.

For at least ten years, maybe for his whole life, people have sucked up to Trump and stroked his ego and worked to flatter and please him. He has had bankruptcies and business failures but was never forced to face his own limitations and the possibility that he was not the greatest of all time. I don't know that one can accurately diagnose someone from a distance, but Trump is clearly not normal. Many psychologists and commentators have suggested that Donald Trump displays behaviors consistent with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), including grandiosity, a need for admiration, and limited empathy. 

I don't think anyone thought that Trump would graciously accept the midterm results if he lost. Before the election, he tried to put his fingers on the scales, first by mid-decade redistricting, then by trying to force states to use his voter ID list, then by trying to pass the SAVE Act, and then by trying to get the US Postal Service to not deliver mail-in ballots, and various other ways. Most of what he attempted failed, and some, like redistricting, actually backfired. 

I am so glad that Trump lost the midterms by such a large margin. If the loss had been by only ten or fifteen votes in the House and Republicans had held the Senate, I fully expected Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act in places and to seize ballots and voting machines and for the House to refuse to seat the newly elected representatives. I do not expect that chaos now. Democrats won by a margin too large to deny. Trump is still in denial, however.

This morning Trump posted on Truth Social, "Does anyone really believe this "Election" was honest?" He said some voting "dumps" were so large that Republicans could not win no matter how many people voted.

I know there are some Trump cultists who will believe him. We should not be surprised that some will. Some people believe chemtrails are a real thing, that 9-11 was an inside job, that Katrina was a government-engineered disaster to kill Black folks, that the true assassin of JFK has never been revealed, that the French Foreign Legion somehow in cahoots with Israel really killed Charlie Kirk, and that the moon landing was faked. Some people are somehow wired to believe the craziest things, and the more bizarre they are, the more strongly they believe them.

For those in touch with reality, the claim by Trump that this midterm election was rigged is just bizarre.  I know Trump could still do something to blow up the world, and a cornered animal can be dangerous. However, Trump is the lamest of lame ducks. Once hearings start on the Trump corruption and his malfeasance in office, I expect more and more people to abandon Trump. People can turn on a bully mighty quickly when his power starts to wane. While I detest Trump and want his crimes to see the light of day, at this point he is almost to be pitied, much the same way you might pity Hitler moving imaginary division around on a map of Europe. 

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Metro Nashville Budget Woes Again. It's a Spending Problem.

by Councilmember Courtney Johnson, Facebook, Nov. 9, 2026- We raised property taxes 27%. And we’re STILL talking about potential layoffs to make next year’s budget work?

You can’t make this stuff up!!

Metro is preparing to offer employees a voluntary retirement incentive of $1,000 per year of service, hoping to save approximately $10 MILLION in next year’s budget.

Why? Because according to Metro Finance, FY2028 is expected to be even tighter than FY2027, and they’re trying to avoid layoffs.

Let that sink in.

After a 27% property tax increase, we’re already discussing how to cut personnel costs to make ends meet.

At what point do we acknowledge that Nashville doesn’t just have a revenue problem? We have a SPENDING problem.

Our taxpayers cannot continue to be the solution to every budget shortfall.

We need to get serious about how we’re spending their money.

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But I Want to Storm the Capitol

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Sooner or Later God'll Cut You Down

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Trump to Conservatives: We Are Watching you.

by Rod Williams, Nov. 6, 2026 - Voters took Trump's words to heart and voted as if he were on the ballot, resulting in a historic loss for Republicans. Now, many Trumpinista politicians and pundits are questioning what went wrong. Even J. D. Vance, who was never really on board with the Iraq War, is saying it was the war. It's unusual for a vice president to throw the president under the bus. Normally, the vice president would want to stay in the good graces of the president and inherit the mantle. I guess Vance sees there is no mantle to inherit. I think it is too late for a break with Trump to help J. D. Vance. I think we can stick a fork in him; he's done. 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who unsuccessfully challenged Trump for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, blamed Trump for the midterm losses. “This midterm, no question, was a rebuke of the president and the Congress by Democrats, independents and some Republicans that crossed over,” he told Fox News’ Laura Ingraham.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz described the losses as “a Watergate-level repudiation” in a social-media post, writing Trump’s "tariffs have made everything too expensive” while “the Iran war has dragged on too long.”

Other pundits are saying it was the quality of the candidates. You think so? Darleen Graham was obviously not ready for prime time, and other Republican candidates were pretty weak. The best example of a bad candidate is Ken Paxton in Texas. Republicans had an incumbent candidate of quality in John Cornyn, but due to a personal vendetta, a good person was jettisoned by a vindictive president to be replaced by a corrupt candidate that Trump liked. 

Paxton had been indicted in 2015 on felony securities fraud charges for allegedly misleading investors about his financial relationship with a technology company. In a plea deal, those charges were dropped after restitution and community service. That was just the tip of the iceberg. There were credible charges of bribery, self-enrichment, and misuse of his office. Paxton was impeached by the Texas House in 2023 but acquitted by the Senate after a two‑week trial.  I would say candidate quality matters, and the person responsible for promoting bad candidates was Donald J. Trump. 

To question what went wrong is to question Trump, and he doesn't like to be questioned; he wants devotion and adoration. He wants supplicants, sycophants, and loyal followers. Trump will always have those. Years from now, when Trump is long gone, there will still be people who think our greatest hour was the Trump presidency.  I think the cult of Trump is much like the cult of Peron in Argentina. Over 50 years since he last served in office, Peron still has defenders. 

So, while Trump has his loyalists who will never abandon him, I think we will see the MAGA movement splinter, and many will abandon MAGA altogether, and others argue over who is the real MAGA (or America First). Even before this election debacle, we saw it happening with the split off of people like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Tucker Carlson. 

With the election defeat, more people will abandon Trump. I expect to see more and more people to begin leaving the administration, and when Democrats start investigating the Trump corruption, I expect to see people abandoning Trump like rats abandoning a sinking ship. The only thing that will keep some on board is the Trump bargaining chip of a pardon for loyalists. 

Donald J. Trump is the lamest of lame ducks. I don't know how much power to keep in line or intimidate he has left. Following such a humiliating defeat, he can't have a lot. However, he didn't seem to get the memo. 

On Thursday, a memo from the White House Office of Public Liaison was sent to about 3,000 conservative organizations, listing a series of Trump accomplishments and vowing that a Democratic Congress wouldn’t reverse them.  The memo ended with one sentence highlighted in yellow: “As always, we are monitoring statements, press releases, and media engagements from your organizations.”

(link)

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Tim Burchett Plans to Run for U.S. Senate Regardless of Blackburn Successor Choice

 by Jonathan Mattise, The Tennessee Journal, Nov 5, 2026- U.S. Rep. Tim Burchett says he is “absolutely”
going to begin campaigning for a 2028 Senate run should incumbent Marsha Blackburn appoint someone else if she’s elected governor.

“We’ve got a very good, positive network throughout the state of grassroots people,” Burchett told ....

Blackburn, who entered the increasingly testy gubernatorial race as the frontrunner, has indicated that she plans to make the Senate appointment rather than allowing Republican Gov. Bill Lee to do so before leaving office in January.

Burchett, former Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs, U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and former CoreCivic CEO Damon Hininger have come up in conversations as potential candidates. When asked whether he would seek the appointment, Lee himself said he has no intention to run for the Senate, without specifically talking about the possibility of being appointed. 

... interim replacement would be in office until a 2028 election ... Blackburn would have to resign her Senate seat before she could be sworn in as governor. ... (read more)

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Voters Voted as if Trump were on the Ballot. My Commentary.

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TN Supreme Court Upholds the State Law Capping Metro Council at 20 Members and the State Takeover of the Airport

by The Pamphleteer, Nov. 2, 2026 - The justices unanimously rejected Metro’s argument that the state constitution’s Exemption Clause protects its 40-member council, and tossed its local-legislation challenge as moot after lawmakers amended the law this spring. In a companion ruling, the court also dismissed Metro’s lawsuit over the 2023 state takeover of the airport authority board, which had handed six of eight seats to the governor and the House and Senate speakers. That case became moot after the legislature rewrote the law to cover all metro airport authorities, and the ruling wipes out Metro’s wins in the lower courts. 

#

To read the Metro Council opinion, follow this link

To read the airport opinion, follow this link. 

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If You Are Going to Run for Congress, Don't Send Nude Pics of Yourself Unless You ...

... Unless You Are Running Against Left-wing Provocateur Justin J. Pearson, and Then You
Can Get by With it.  

Tennessee congressional candidate responds to allegations he sent unsolicited nude pics

by Sam Stockard, Tennessee Lookout, Oct.29, 2026 - A Republican congressional candidate endorsed by President Donald Trump dismissed accusations he sent nude pictures as “youthful indiscretions.”

In a story published Tuesday by the Nashville Scene, Sen. Brent Taylor stopped short of admitting to sending the pictures after more than one anonymous source said they had received or seen nude photos from him, including as recently as 2021. Taylor said he had been forgiven by his wife, Kimberly. 

.... His opponent, Pearson, issued a statement this week saying, “Men of faith — let alone men who are married, in their fifties, and in public office — have no business sending unsolicited nude photos to women.” Pearson said the news “reflects very disturbing behavior” from someone who has held public office since 1995. 

 

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Trump Just Keeps on Losing his Election Interference Efforts

by Rod Williams, Nov. 1, 2026- In Trump's bid to steal the midterms, Trump's losses just keep piling up.  A federal judge in Alaska has dismissed the Trump administration’s lawsuit that pre-emptively challenged the results in a U.S. Senate race if any candidate won other than the incumbent Republican Dan Sullivan. You can read about it at this link.

That is not the only recent loss for Trump.  On Friday, the U.S. District Court in California blocked the administration from threatening to prosecute state and local election officials who do not comply with the department’s directives on handling ballots. (link)

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