Will Nashville have a transit funding vote? Decision delayed, but mayor 'optimistic'
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A right-leaning disgruntled Republican comments on the news of the day and any other thing he damn-well pleases.
Of course, this ability of Republicans to believe crazy stuff did not start in the Trump era. Back about 2012 Republicans went nuts with fear of something called "Agenda 21", which was nothing more than meaningless United Nations study. Agenda 21 didn't amount to much. It was not a policy or a law. It was just a fanciful set of proposed policies to save the world from global warming. If enacted it could have been devastating to the world economy, but there was no way that was going to happen. However, Agenda 21 became this big thing to be feared and everything from shady sidewalks to reintroducing wolves into the wild was seen as a part of this big plan to kill 97% of the world's population by poisoning them with aspartame and Floride.
Of course, back in the 50's and 60's The John Birch Society controlled many Republican County parties across the country. The JBS had this big conspiracy that "the insiders" had been manipulating things for about 200 years and both Communism and Nazism was just something the insiders allowed to happen. Many never did know the full conspiracy theory and just thought the JBS was a group of patriotic, anti-communist conservatives. What was well known is that the JBS was quick to call anyone not on the same page as they a communist. And, almost any disaster of foreign policy blunder was suspected of being planned, not just something that happened.
Trump era weirdness is so common that much of it goes unnoticed. Philip Bump writing in the Washington Post today reports on a new right wing conspiracy theory that will make your head explode. Here it is. The Kansas City Chiefs are being ushered to the Super Bowl, somehow by George Soros fixing the game so that somehow that will secure Swift’s endorsement for President Biden.
I know. It will make your head explode. It doesn't make sense. I can't explain it. I don't watch much "conservative" media these days. Very little Fox, no Newsweek, or OAN and I don't follow a lot of Trumpinista's on X or other social media, so I miss a lot, but apparently this theory is making the rounds. I am over being shocked. All I can do is shake my head.
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Rep. Andy Ogles |
The rule was previously to take effect in 2026 for would-be GOP candidates seeking to run under the party’s banner. In a 32-29 decision, SEC members opted to go with a 2024 timeline. It is expected to keep some potential GOP candidates off the ballot.
Among them are businessman and investor Baxter Lee and conservative activist and video director Robby Starbuck who are said to have been eying the state’s Republican primary for a 5th Congressional District bid in 2026.
The SEC’s action on Saturday is expected to benefit first-term incumbent 5th District Congressman Andy Ogles, ... Under the version of the “bona fide” standards adopted Saturday, GOP hopefuls would have to have voted in three of the following four most recent GOP primaries before qualifying for the August 2024 primary.
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Click to Watch the Video |
The move overturns a decision by the Metro Nashville Public Schools board to shutter the school at the end of the current school year. Metro voted 8-1 to close the school during a November meeting. The state commission, established under Gov. Bill Lee's administration in 2019, has the authority to reverse the decisions of local districts and can approve or renew charter schools.
The school board's Rocketship denial came despite a recommendation by the charter review committee, made up of MNPS staff and community members, to renew. ... the school is among the top performers in the Maplewood cluster, earning "reward school status" in 2019 — the highest honor the Tennessee Department of Education gives to schools. (read more)
A new report shows that 46% of Promise students receive at least 24 credits in their first year at a community college compared to 18% of the rest of the student population.
Nearly 48% of Promise students earned at least 1,170 clock hours (which is the equivalent of three full-time trimesters with allowed absences) in the first year at the Tennessee Colleges of Applied Technology (TCAT) compared to 26% of students outside the program, according to an evaluation of the program from the Comptroller’s Office of Research and Education Accountability.
The program is a last-dollar scholarship, meaning it will cover costs after other scholarships are factored in at community colleges, or it will fund up to the $4,000 average community college tuition mark for associate degree programs at four-year schools.
The report says Promise scholarship students may pay at least $1,000 per year in out-of-pocket expenses at community college or $3,100 at TCAT.
The report recommends expanding the reach of the funds or adding a minimum Promise payment.
The report said most Promise students at community colleges, especially those studying nursing, do not complete a degree within the program’s five-semester limit. The report suggests the state extend the program for at least some students to increase the rate of degree attainment.
The report also said meeting the initial community service deadline is the most common reason that applicants are not eligible and suggests the state could remove that requirement to increase student eligibility.
That means “Republican in name only,” of course. It’s a stale epithet. Mildly clever in its origins, it referred mainly to elected Republicans in Washington who posed as conservatives for their home-state constituents (“severely conservative” as the squishy Mitt Romney described himself), but who, at best, mounted little meaningful resistance to the progressive ascendancy and Leviathan’s expansion.
RINO is inapposite with the Republican Party having become the Trump Party. Indeed, it’s the Republican Party that is now “Republican in name only.” No longer are we talking an entity that is substantively the Republican Party — meaning the politically and ideologically conservative major party in the United States. A party wedded to that orthodoxy no longer exists, so it is irrational to speak of RINOs who feign allegiance to the orthodoxy. ....
The RINO insult is incoherent. Most of what Trump labels RINOs are what, until recently, we thought of as actual Republicans. They are on the outs now because (a) they won’t join the Trump personality cult and, (b) to the extent there is an ideological “Trumpism” (as opposed to one man’s eccentric, reactive views), they won’t swallow its heresies from traditional conservatism (e.g., big intrusive government, runaway spending, unsustainable entitlements, protectionism, skepticism about America’s leadership in the world, embrace of anti-American dictators while vilifying American political rivals, and the promise of a Democrat-style retributive-justice system rather than a traditional American justice system that reveres equal protection under the law). (Continue reading and see "why he can't win")
Also see my blog post, You might be a Rino, if ... and Confessions of a RINO.