Saturday, July 24, 2021

Nashville named best city for first-time homebuyers

If Nashville is ranked number 1, we are in a world of hurt.  The American dream is dead. 

By Jason Thomas and Meg Wrather – Nashville Business Journal, Jul 19, 2021- A new study by financial technology company SmartAsset reveals that Nashville is the best city in the country for first-time homebuyers. Nashville came in at No. 1 on SmartAsset's ranking, which considered 163 of the largest U.S. cities and analyzed 12 metrics across four major categories: home market favorability, affordability, livability and employment. (link)

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Tennessee ranked third-best state for retirement

Bankrate, a New York-based consumer financial services company, conducted the study using a variety of metrics to rank each state from best to worst places to retire.  Florida is second and Georgia ranks as the best.

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Don't be stupid. Get the vaccine. Best wishes to Phil Valentine.

 


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Friday, July 23, 2021

Jim Cooper - Odessa Kelly race heats up. Kelly is a viable challenger.

Raises $300K. Her campaign gets national attention.


Jim Cooper
by Holly McCall, Tennessee Lookout, JULY 23, 2021-
  ... Making it rain: Cooper raised just over $580,000; Kelly raised just over $300,000. Both are credible numbers, but the numbers need some context. One tenet of politics is that a candidate needs to make an impressive showing with their first disclosure, lest he or she be written off as non-competitive. Kelly did that. 
Odessa Kelly

To raise $300,000 as a first-time candidate is impressive, particularly so given she’s running against a long-time incumbent..... Kelly got money from actress Jane Fonda, Metro Nashville Education Association President Amanda Kail, public housing advocates Eddie Latimer and Kay Bowers, and Judge Rachel Bell. ...  

Virtually every member of Middle Tennessee’s Democratic establishment gave more than $100 to Cooper. Kelly received a few contributions of over $100 from Young Democrats, including a labor organizer and two legislative staff members, but no donations from prominent Democrats. ...  She has scored the endorsements of a half dozen of Nashville’s 40 council members, including Sean Parker, who also serves in a role on her campaign staff. ....

For her part, Kelly is a stronger candidate than Keeda Haynes, Cooper’s last primary challenger. Haynes had a compelling backstory but lacked the deep and broad community ties of Kelly, who has a warm charisma that makes you feel you’ve known her forever upon your first meeting. A graduate of Metro Nashville Public Schools and Tennessee State University, where she played basketball, Kelly has worked for Metro Parks and now directs Stand Up Nashville, a pro-labor organization. All of that is to say that if Haynes could swing almost 40% of the 2020 primary vote to Cooper’s 57%, it’s feasible that Kelly could pick up an additional 8% to close the gap. ... the outcome of the 2022 primary is anyone’s guess. (Read the full story at this link.) 

Rod's comment: While if my only choice were between Cooper and Kelly as our next congressman, I would favor Cooper, it would not be by much. I will not be voting in the Dem primary to save Cooper from a candidate even further to the left. For one thing, the Democrat mainstream is so far to the left now, that it doesn't much matter if a Democrat is more like Cooper or more like Kelly.  Cooper is sometimes called a "moderate," but he votes in lockstep with his party.  Also, while at one time, Cooper may have been fiscally conservative and he once warned of massive deficit spending and the national debt, he no longer speaks of those concerns.  About the only difference between a moderate Democrat and a Democratic Socialist Democrat is style, demeanor, and rhetoric.  The moderate Democrats are more boring.

In fact, in this Democrat contest, I am favoring Kelly.  If the Republican primary is boring, I may vote in the Democrat primary and actually vote for Kelly. Why?  because I think a Republican could stand a better chance of beating Kelly in the general election than they could of beating Cooper. Kelly would be the weaker candidate.  In a general election contest, some undecided or persuadable voters may be more likely to be persuaded to vote Republican if the candidate is Kelly than if it is the boring but known Jim Cooper. Cooper doesn't scare voters; Kelly may.

Between now and the election, the Republican legislature will be redrawing district boundaries. If boundaries are redrawn to add a few more rural and conservative voters to the 5th, and if Republicans nominate a serious candidate who cannot credibly be smeared as a Trumpinista, Republicans may stand a chance of winning the 5th.  A lot can happen between now and then but I am glad to see Cooper have a viable challenger.  

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Is Gov. Bill Lee running for president? Bill Freeman says he is.

by BILL FREEMAN, The Nashville Scene, JUL 22, 2021 -You may not see his name on any of the potential-presidential-candidate listings, but multiple sources close to Gov. Bill Lee have told me it is a “100 percent certainty” that he will be making a run for the White House in 2024. Even if he doesn’t make it to the Oval Office, they say, he’d be interested in being vice president — but these are jobs that require the governor to increase his national recognition. 


Perhaps this explains why Lee found it necessary to go to the Texas-Mexico border recently, .... (For more of this Lee-bashing story, follow this link.)

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Thursday, July 22, 2021

Do strict state gun policies reduce gun violence. (Gun talk #6)

by Rod Williams- In looking at the issue of gun violence, one thing seems safe to say, strict local gun control policies have little impact on the level of gun violence. Well, what about state gun policies?  Do strict state gun laws have an impact on the level of gun violence?  

Across the nation, the level of restrictions on guns varies greatly.  A website called Inverse, reports that according to the State Firearm Laws database maintained by the Boston University School of Public Health, the following states, at only four each, have the fewest gun laws:
  • Idaho
  • Montana
  • Alaska 
The states with the most gun laws, with 106 and 100, respectively are:
  • California
  • Massachusetts
What are we talking about when we talk about state gun laws? Here are some of the most common. 
  • Bans on "assault weapons" and large-capacity magazines.
  • Background checks, more stringent than the federal requirement. 
  • Banning the sale of guns to "high-risk" individuals, such as those with mental health issues or a history of violence. 
  • Buyer regulation such as requiring a license to purchase a gun or even receive a gift of a gun from a family member or restricting the number of guns a single buyer may purchase or requiring registration of the gun. 
  • Possession and carry regulations, such as rules on where one may carry, and carry permits for concealed weapons or open carry.
  • Domestic violence laws such as laws prohibiting one convicted of domestic violence from owning a gun or even one with a restraining order. 
These are some of the most popular gun laws advocated by those who want more gun laws. To see which states have which gun laws in the categories listed above, follow this link.  (For much more on the gun laws in the various states see this link and this link.) 

So, if state gun laws are effective, states with more gun laws should show less gun violence. What does the evidence show? World Population Review, a credible source of information that analyzes all kinds of data and statistics to make the information accessible and understandable, has looked at the data on states with the most and least gun deaths (link).  Here is what the data shows:

The five states with the highest gun death rates are:
  • Alaska - 24.4 deaths per 100,000
  • Mississippi - 24.2 deaths per 100,000
  • Wyoming - 22.3 deaths per 100,000
  • New Mexico - 22.3 deaths per 100,000
  • Alabama - 22.2 deaths per 100,000
The five states with the lowest gun death rates are:
  • Massachusetts - 3.4 deaths per 100,000
  • New York - 3.9 deaths per 100,000
  • New Jersey - 4.1 deaths per 100,000
  • Hawaii - 4.4 deaths per 100,000
  • Rhode Island - 4.6 deaths per 100,000
Notice this about the above data:
  • Alaska is one of the states with the highest gun death rate and also the fewest gun laws.
  • Massachusetts is one of the states with the lowest gun death rate and most gun laws. 
That would support the argument that more gun laws result in a lower gun death rate. 

People who have studied the issue reach the same conclusion.  The Senate Committee on the Judiciary issued a statement from Senator Dianne Feinstein, chairman of the committee that stated,  States With Weak Gun Laws Suffer From More Gun Violence. Here are some studies Senator Feinstein references to support her contention.
  • A study by the Center for American Progress found the 10 states with the weakest gun laws (Kansas, Mississippi, Wyoming, Arizona, Alaska, Idaho, Louisiana, Kentucky, Vermont and Missouri) had three times more gun violence than the 10 states with the toughest gun laws (California, Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Hawaii, Illinois, Rhode Island and Delaware).
  • One John Hopkins University study found that when Connecticut implemented a requirement to have a permit to purchase a gun, gun homicides dropped by 40 percent. When Missouri repealed a similar law, gun homicides rose 25 percent.
One may not like Senator Feinstein for any number of reasons and one may reject calls for more gun regulation because of philosophical reasons, but the information she sighted can not be just dismissed because Senator Feinstein quoted it. The Center for American Progress and John Hopkins, do not just make up facts.

Other reputable sources also looked at the data and come to the same conclusion that more gun control results in (or at least correlates with) fewer gun deaths. Here are some other studies:







In looking at any data set, one should be mindful of the difference between causation and correlation. Remember that people who carry cigarette lighters have more incidents of lung cancer.  Other factors that may influence the findings in the reports sighted above are the demographics of the state, the number of guns in circulation, the effectiveness of the enforcement of the laws on the books, the guns laws of adjacent states, and the culture of the state.  

If one looked for patterns one may find that states with high levels of auto accidents have more gun fatalities or one may find that a state with more obesity has less gun violence. Just because data correlates does indicate a cause nor does it dictate one reach a certain conclusion.  Having stated the above caveat, however, the data causes me to recognize that states with more gun laws have fewer gun deaths.

For more in this series of articles on gun violence see the following:


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Tuesday, July 20, 2021

We should welcome those fleeing tyranny. Refugees from Cuba, Afghanistan and Hong Kong should be given priority.

by Rod Williams - The Biden administration is planning to temporarily house about 2,500 Afghan refugees at Fort Lee in Virginia, with expansion to other military bases possible in the future, U.S. officials announced on Monday. 

Fort Lee, an army post just south of Richmond, will serve as a way-station for Afghans who have passed the State Department’s screening for special immigrant visas. This group includes interpreters and others who worked alongside American troops in Afghanistan, along with their families, all of whom are targeted by the Taliban.

I approve of this policy.  Those who threw their lot in with the Americas and now are targeted for retaliation should not be abandoned.  Unfortunately, we can not save everyone.  Parents who sent their young girls to school, believing a new day was dawning in Afganistan and embraced a future free from radical Islamic tyranny may pay the ultimate price for daring to oppose the Taliban.   Those who can flee the country, if the Taliban begins a program of retaliation, should be granted amnesty in America.  We owe it to them.

As Cubans dare demonstrate for freedom, the Biden administration is taking a hard line on Cuban refugees.  The Biden administration has said in no uncertain terms, that those who manage to reach the US by sea will be apprehended by the US Coast Guard and taken back to Cuba. That is the equivalent of signing their death warrant. Those fleeing Cuban who request political asylum will be referred to third countries for resettlement and will not be allowed to enter the United States.

Shame on Biden!  That is a despicable policy. He has opened the southern border to those from Mexico and the northern triangle.  Why the discrepancy?  Is he afraid Cuban refugees will become Republican voters?  We should welcome those fleeing Cuba and rescue them at sea.  In addition to accepting those with a legitimate claim to political asylum from Afganistan and Cuba, as China continues to tighten the screws in Hong Kong, we should accept refugees from there.

We cannot just open our doors to every person seeking a better economic opportunity but we should welcome those fleeing tyranny. 

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Arise Freedom Tour- 2021, July 21, Brentwood

 


Scott McKay former competitive bodybuilder turned wellness industry entrepreneur
Leigh Dundas- Scientologist and outspoken anti-vaxxer and anti-mask. 
Sacha Stonea British New Age influencer and conspiracy theory promoter

As the author of A Disgruntled Republican I often post items that I think may be of interest to the conservative, Republican, libertarian, or the greater community. Posting of a press release or an announcement of an event does not necessarily indicate an endorsement. Rod

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TBI Report: 2020 deadliest year for murder in Tennessee since 2002

TBI Report: 2020 deadliest year for murder in Tennessee since 2002

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Best state to retire: Tennessee ranks No. 3 in nation

 

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Monday, July 19, 2021

Tennessee Supreme Court to hear Nashville music producer, hairstylist case against city

 Fox 17, July 14, 2021, NASHVILLE, Tenn.--A Nashville music producer and a hairstylist will see their case against the City of Nashville go before the Tennessee Supreme Court. 

 Elijah "Lij" Shaw has been recording and producing music in Music City for acts that include Zac Brown Band, Mumford & Sons, Wilco, and Tori Amos. Since 2005, he's done it from his home's detached garage he converted into a professional, soundproof studio dubbed "The Toy Box Studio." That all came to a halt in September 2015 when Lij received a cease-and-desist letter from the city. According to court documents originally filed, Lij ...(continue reading)

Who would have thought it would be illegal to make music in Nashville?

Institute For Justice, 2017 - Elijah “Lij” Shaw, a single father and lifelong record producer, moved to Nashville in 1991. He has recorded nationally renowned, Grammy Award-winning performers such as John Oates, Jack White, Wilco, Adele, and the Zac Brown Band.[15] 

He’s been living in the same house in East Nashville since he bought it in 2000. When his daughter Sarayah was born in 2005, he was inspired to take charge of his work life and find a way to better support his family. So he invested thousands of dollars to convert his detached garage into The Toy Box Studio: a professionally soundproofed recording studio where he could record his musician clients on his own property, all while remaining close to Sarayah as she grew up. It was a perfect setup. 

Well-respected musicians use The Toy Box Studio—the 2015 Grammy winner for Best Roots Gospel Album was mixed there[16]—and Lij operated for 10 years without incident. His soundproofed studio can’t be seen or heard from the street, and his clients park in his driveway. None of his neighbors have ever complained to him about traffic or noise. But now Nashville is threatening to destroy Lij’s investment and uproot him from his neighborhood. 

In September 2015, Lij opened his mailbox to a letter from the Nashville government ordering him to cease and desist the operation of his home recording studio. A month later, an officer from the Nashville Codes Department called and ordered him to shut down his business or be taken to court. Lij was able to ward off an inspection by agreeing to take his address down from his website, but the officer warned that if Codes ever caught him recording in his studio—or even podcasting—he would be taken to court and shut down.

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Former Mayor David Briley announces bid for circuit court judge

Former Mayor David Briley announces bid for circuit court judge

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