Vote for Dr. Brent Moody in House District 56

Brent Moody

by Mark Roger - If you live in District 56, Please vote for Dr. Brent Moody for State House.

Brent is a nationally respected skin cancer surgeon and is the best prepared choice to replace Beth Harwell who has left the Legislature. Brent brings a cutting edge understanding of medical issues to the role of Representative. This will be of great value as Governor Lee and the Legislature tackle decades long problems in health care. 

Another strength of Brent is that medicine has trained him to listen and do research before making a diagnosis or beginning treatment. He will bring this same focus on dialogue and data to all the issues that will come before the Legislature.

Mark Rogers is a prominent Nashvillian active in Republican Party politics and public affairs. 

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Vote for Bill Lee for Govenor

Bill Lee

by Mark Rogers - Early Voting begins tomorrow, October 17th. It is important for you to show up and play a role in determining the future of our state and federal governments.

I encourage all Tennesseans to vote for Bill Lee for Governor. Bill has proven his ability to manage a large organization with his skillful operation of the Lee Company. One element of his leadership ability was his building of an excellent campaign organization that enabled him to defeat two candidates who outspent him by millions of dollars. That skill, the picking of the right people, is crucial for anyone seeking to govern a state of over six million people spread across 95 counties and almost 500 miles.

Bill also showed his vision by running a campaign that was designed to unify all Tennesseans. In the primary he rose above the barrages of negative attacks to reach out to Republicans from the right to the center. His victory ensured that we could all put aside the divisiveness and focus on the general election and governing after November.

In the General Election Bill has continued to campaign in a manner designed to unify voters of all ideologies and parties. His vision for Tennessee will build on the achievements of Governor Haslam, Lt. Governors Ramsey and McNally and Speaker Harwell.

Karl Dean was a good mayor and a man to be respected. But Bill Lee has proven he can unify the party that will control both Houses next January and and can unify the citizens of our state as we move toward even greater improvements in Education, our Economy and in the overall quality of life in Tennessee.

Please vote early and often for Bill Lee for Governor.

Mark Rogers is a prominent Nashvillian active in Republican Party politics and public affairs. 

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Please vote for Judd Cowan in District 50

Judd Cowan

by Mark Rogers - If you are a resident of State House District 50, please vote early for Judd Cowan. Judd is the Republican in District 50 and he brings the skills we need to help with high tech issues that will face Tennesser in the coming years.

Judd is an engineer who understands how to secure our state computer systems so that our data and our services are protected. He is also well prepared to ensure that the outside companies we hire to do sophisticated computer programs are doing the job right the first time so we can get our school testing operating properly when we need it.

Judd is not a professional politician who puts reelection ahead of doing the right things. He is the sort of citizen legislator we need more of now.

Mark Rogers is a prominent Nashvillian active in Republican Party politics and public affairs.

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Chairman Mary Needs A History Lesson

Mark Rogers

by Mark Rogers, reposted from Quotations from Chairman Mark - Comrade Mal de Mary Mancini is out with a new attack on the Tennessee Republican Party.  Because I know you are busy, I am posting it here.

Friend,

Last week, the Republican National Committee held its annual Summer meeting in Nashville. Republicans say states are the laboratories of democracy, and Tennessee has been on the front lines of Republican policy experimentation.

The results have been an economy that leaves millions of Tennesseans behind. Some lowlights of Republican’s record in Tennessee:

• 10th worst poverty rate in the US with over 1 million Tennesseans living in poverty
• Ranked 38th in the nation by Kids Count for child well being 8th worst median household income in the country.
• Highest percentage of minimum wage jobs of any state in country
• Tennessee dropped in Education Week’s Quality Counts rankings from 21st in 2011 to 36th in 2016.
• Over 365,000 uninsured Tennesseans
• 8 rural hospitals closed since 2010

Tennesseans are realizing the damage Republican policies have done to our state and they are standing up. We need you to join the cause. Make a donation today to support our organizers and volunteers who are already knocking doors to win in 2018.

Thank you!

Mary & the Tennessee Democratic Party

Heavens. I guess we Republicans should be ashamed and just shoot ourselves. Unless we look deeper into Comrade Mary's numbers.

For example:
10th worst poverty rate.
I guess this would be a legitimate criticism of Tennessee Republican governance if Chair Mancini could demonstrate that the poverty rate was substantially lower in the years when Governor Bredesen ran the state. Or perhaps we could look at the poverty rate over the last 100 or more years when the Democratic Party ran the state without much opposition.

Serious, inter-generational poverty in Tennessee, like most Southern Red States, dates to the years before the Civil War when most planters opposed efforts to diversify the regional economy and to maintain the dominance of cotton. Blaming the Republicans who have controlled Tennessee for less than a decade is much like blaming the crew who mishandled the loading of lifeboats for the Titanic hitting the iceberg.

What the Democrats want us to see is that we have more work ahead to undo the damage of decades of corrupt protection for a ruling class that feared economic growth because it would attract new people and new ideas that challenge Democratic rule. Is it any surprise that as Tennessee's population has expanded in the last few decades, the state has become more and more prosperous and Republican?

Want to bet on where Tennessee is in a decade? My guess is that we will move up to the middle of the states and keep improving.

Kids Count Rankings.
Again, what are the trends? And it would be worth looking at the county by county ranking. Democratic policies and political considerations kept rural parts of the state poorer than necessary to preserve their political control and to reward local leaders. In parts of Tennessee, Democratic economic development policy consisted of adding a fancy road {also benefiting connected road builders}. Actually recruiting businesses that would bring in jobs that required educating workers would threaten the status quo.

Also, national Democratic Party policy didn't help. The Great Society increased poverty by ignoring education and training and investments in jobs. The problems faced by Memphis, for example, cannot be blamed on Tennessee or national Republicans. If you take the counties with the heaviest Democratic voting out of the Kids Count numbers, how does Tennessee fair?

Now, having said that, it is the responsibility of the Republican Party in the state to work with Memphis and Shelby County and all the other areas with the greatest problems to do everything possible to help them to build greater prosperity. We must do better than the Democrats.

Highest percentage of minimum wage jobs.
Better than no jobs right? And we have been a low wage state for decades under Democrats because they didn't improve Education or recruit better jobs.

What Chairman Mary doesn't say is how many good new jobs are being created by existing employers or brought to the state because of our business climate under Republicans. What about all the new investment Mary? What about the great industries moving here?

I guess Mary doesn't want us to look at all the facts because they are inconvenient truths for Democrats.

Education Week’s Quality Counts rankings. Mary provides no specifics. Why did we fall? Perhaps other states rose? Why matters. Well, maybe not to Democrats like Chairman Mary.
Plenty of other organizations have heaped praise on Tennessee's Education rankings. Where is Mary's reporting of those results?

Over 365,000 uninsured Tennesseans.
Governor McWherter could have solved that in the early 90s with a more thought out plan than TennCare and the willingness to impose a state income tax to fund it. No Governor has has McWherter's power. That he refused to use it to really solve the problem is not a Republican crime.
I supported InsureTN. I still like some form of state support for poor families in health care. But again, you cannot simply blame Republicans without looking at the history of health care in the state. Governor Haslam was right about this.

8 rural hospitals closed since 2010.
Again, Chair Mary provides a data point without context. Would Medicaid expansion have saved these hospitals? Why did each close? Fact matter.

Clearly Chair Mary needs to study some history before she tries to blame 100+ years of failures on less than 10 years of Republican governance.

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A response to Will Pinkston's attack on the Chamber by Mark Rogers

Mark Rogers

Mr. Disgruntled,


I read your post on Pinkston. Here is my Facebook comment on Will and his opinion of the Chamber.

 Is the Chamber of Commerce really an enemy of Public Education in Nashville? If one believes School Board member, Will Pinkston, then the only conclusion is that the Chamber has a not-so-secret plan to keep Nashville's public school children uneducated.

Pinkston, it will be remembered, is the School Board member who's hostile behavior toward those who dare disagree with him is legendary. His bid for re-election resulted in a wafer-thin victory, suggesting that he does not speak for as many citizens of Nashville who care about public education as he thinks. His attack on the Nashville Chamber, in the form of a response to the Nashville  Education Report {a valuable publication that is worth regular reading} embodies the ugliness of Pinkston's 'my way or the highway' attitude. Worse, it may be reflective of the views of other School Board members and leading members of Metro government, something that could lead to worsening in any consensus for improving Metro Schools.

In his own words: "I am more convinced than ever that the Chamber is an enemy of public education — and frankly, it has been for a long time."

Right. Because greedy capitalists only need uneducated workers with low incomes. Companies like Bridgestone and HCA and Nissan look forward to the glut of $7 per hour workers they are creating by undermining public education. "The fact is the Chamber, through its lack of understanding of public education and lack of leadership in this community, helped to enable poor-performing superintendents for the better part of two decades — while at the same time trying, mostly ineffectively, to destabilize the school board in local elections."

The Chamber lacks an understanding of public education? In my experience, business people, particularly successful ones, understand a great deal about education and about the people in their communities. That is to say, their employees and their customers. "Thankfully, the Mayor, the Metro Council, and the school board are finally on the same page. We’re all working together to lead public education forward, no thanks to the Chamber." I am really excited to see if a reporter will ask Her Honor, the Mayor, if she agrees with her political ally, Mr. Pinkston, about that. "MNPS is going to succeed despite you, not because of you."

I want Metro Public Schools to succeed. But my guess is that Pinkston's ideas, more money and more bureaucracy and less accountability, won't work. More to the point, if the major problems facing Education in Nashville are related to the home, the School Board isn't going to be able to deal with the fundamental problems.

Perhaps, instead of fighting political and ideological wars with people who want to help, Pinkston and his allies ought to reach out and target poverty and homelessness and poor parenting. And they might find that the Chamber can be helpful there too.

Mark Rogers is a prominent Nashvillian active in Republican Party politics and public affairs.

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Personal attacks, tempers flare at Nashville GOP meeting over Mark Winslow's conflict of interest.

Mark Winslow

There were fireworks at the Davidson County Republican Party Executive Committee (DCRP) meeting earlier this week resulting from the conflict of interest inherent in a member of the Executive Committee serving in that position while at the same time managing the campaign of a Democrat seeking office. “The most interesting meeting ever!!!” is the way one person described the meeting. "Disgraceful," someone else said.  Debate turned into personal attacks, tempers flared, voices were raised, and profanities were reportedly uttered.

Mark Winslow who serves as a member of the State Executive Committee of the Republican Party, by virtue of that position, also serves as a voting member of the Davidson County Republican Party Executive Committee. Mark Winslow is also managing the campaign of Mellissa Blackburn who is running for Davidson County Judge Division II has a Democrat. She has four opponents also seeking that seat.  On the Republican side, Marian Fodyce is seeking the position.

Early in her campaign, prior to the qualifying deadline, Winslow started working for Blackburn as her paid campaign manager. He reportedly took her around introducing her to people telling them that she was really a Republican but was running as a Democrat because her chances of getting elected were much greater in Davidson County if she ran as a Democrat. Mark Winslow works for SmithWaterhouse, a firm that manages political campaigns and lobbies. The principles in the firm are Robin Smith, a Republican and Albert Waterhouse, a Democrat. Robin Smith formerly served as the chairman of the Tennessee Republican party.

Earlier this month, Mark Winslow’s candidacy to again run for a position on the State Executive Committee was challenged because of his managing the campaign for a Democrat. Party Chairman Chris Devaney showed lack of courage however and refused to uphold the challenge and Winslow was allowed to keep his name on the ballot. (link)

At the meeting of the DCRP this week, Beth Campbell who is also a member of the State Republican Party Executive Committee and therefore also a member of the DCRP executive committee, offered a motion to give each judicial candidate running for office as a Republican a sum of money now, to help them in their campaigns. The logic for this is that all the Republican candidates for judge have uncontested primaries. The Democrats candidates do have contested races, so Democrats will be actively campaigning prior to the start of the general election campaign and will have had yard signs posted and have been otherwise gaining name recognition. By giving Republicans some campaign assistance now, at least they would have some money and could be gaining some name recognition. Also, candidates for the office of Judge are prohibited from soliciting campaign contributions. They can accept contribution and have someone else raise money on their behalf but without the ability to personally ask for a contribution, they are handicapped.

Mark Rogers

Robert Duvall, chairman of the DCRP opposed this proposal. He had already appointed a three person committee comprised of Chuck Naab, Ed Smith and Pat Carl charged with vetting candidate. This process was not a vetting of their eligibility to run as a Republican but their deserving of financial support. Duvall’s view was that the Party should only financially support those candidates who are making the best effort to win a race. There are always some candidates who put their name on the ballot but then do not seriously campaign. Mr. Duvall did not want the Party to give campaign money to candidates who were not serious candidates. Also, Robert had reservations about giving money to candidates prior to the primary. The party cannot endorse a candidate in the primary and must not show preference to a primary candidate. While, not likely that a write-in candidate for one of the positions would emerge, Mr Duvall thought that since it was a possibility, he thought it not appropriate to contribute to candidates prior to the primary.

To wait until after the primary however would  result in the money getting to the candidates too late to have much impact, argues Campbell.  These candidates sacrifice to run and running in Davidson County as Republicans, they are the underdogs. The Party should show its support for their willingness to run by supporting them.

Prior to submitting her motion, Beth Campbell had discussed it with Robert Duvall and they had discussed their views of the issue and Robert Duvall had suggested that Beth get the item on the agenda for discussion. She did, and when she brought up the issue, the committee moved to go into executive session to discuss it.  Mark Rogers, not a member of the DCPR executive committee, was at the meeting and asked if he could address the issue under discussion before they moved into executive discussion to deliberate and vote. Mark has been hired by the State Republican party to help recruit local candidates for office as part of the Party’s “Red to the Roots” campaign to increase Republican officeholders at the local level in Tennessee. He is working closely with the various Republicans candidates for Judge helping promote their candidacies. He wanted to make the case in favor of Beth Campbell’s motion.

Beth Campbell

Mark Winslow objected to letting the committee hear from Mark Rogers. Kay Brooks joined Winslow in arguing the Committee should go into executive session immediately without hearing from Rogers. I was not at this meeting and here it gets a little murky. I am not sure who said what and exactly what was the order of the exchange but one person told me that Winslow was “very rude” to Mark Rogers. Someone else said Rogers was “humiliated” by Winslow. I also heard it described as Winslow “went off” on Rogers.

In executive session, the motion by Beth Campbell was discussed and Campbell asked Winslow to recuse himself from the vote, since he had an obvious conflict of interest. He angrily refused and, as I understand it, there was a heated exchange between Winslow and Campbell. The committee voted to appropriate the modest sum to each of the judicial candidates with Mark Winslow voting against it.

To me it appears an obvious conflict of interest that Mark Winslow can take part in the proceedings to determine to what extend and when the Party will support their candidates when he has an interest in seeing the Republican lose the race. One cannot serve two masters. Mark Winslow should do the honorable thing and either resign from the campaign of Milissa Blackburn or resign from the State Republican Party Executive Committee.

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The battle between Congressman Diane Black and Lou Ann Zelnick.

by Mark Rogers

Mark Rogers

One of the most important primary races in Tennessee this year is the 6th Congressional District battle between Congressman Diane Black and Lou Ann Zelnick. This is the continuation of the 2010 Republican primary between these two and State Senator Jim Tracy. Black won by a few hundred votes and a bitter legal battle developed that lasted for well over a year.

The 6th District race matter for two reasons.

First, it matters that Tennessee keep a hard-working highly capable conservative like Diane Black in Congress. Unlike too many members of Congress, including Republicans, Diane Black gets to know the nuances of complex policy issues rather than just chanting ideological talking points. She is willing to put in the hard work to develop effective solutions. As a state senator, she was crucial in ensuring that a substantial number of state programs had to be built on evidence-based models, ensuring that those programs worked.

For the Republican party to rebuild America's economy and fix health care, we need studious and thoughtful conservatives like Diane. Otherwise we risk falling into the trap that ruined us in the early 2000s. Under the leadership of Tom DeLay the Republicans in the House worried more about selling out to lobbyists and passing symbolic nonsense rather than actually governing well.
Diane Black is a natural leader for the Congressional Republicans and a great example of a citizen legislator.

The second reason to keep Diane Black in Congress is that we need to prevent the extremists from pushing the party so far to the fringe that we will lose any chance of building coalitions with swing voters who prefer conservatives but not ideologues.

Her opponent seems to be more interested in revenge and personalities rather than policy or the future of the Republican party. Voters in the 6th Congressional District should know that after losing the Republican primary for State House in Rutherford County, Congressman Black's challenger blamed elected officials for her loss rather than admit that she ran a poor campaign. Notice a pattern here?

Diane's opponent hurts the party and America by blindly lumping all Muslims into the same stereotype. Rather than focusing on the dangerous militants, she seems set on making the issue one of America vs Islam, which is unfair to millions of Muslims who are also loyal Americans. The nonsense surrounding the hiring at ECD of the highly qualified Samar Ali is just the kind of thing that rhetoric like her's encourages. 

Diane Black will put the interests of America above the demands of special interests. She will reduce unnecessary government and improve the efficiency of the necessary parts. She will support reforms that bring back jobs and strengthen education for the next generation of technology.

She will work to protect America from our real enemies, not create new or imaginary enemies.
If you live in the 6th Congressional District, please vote for Diane Black in the Republican Primary. If you don't live in the 6th, be sure to let friends who do know that it is vital to help re-elect a great Congressman like Diane Black.

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Victoria Jackson of SNL joins the anti-Muslim crusade

Victoria Jackson is cute. I like her dim-witted, squeaky-voice, dizzy-blonde persona.  Last summer I saw her  perform at one of the Tea Party events which took place out in the Opryland area in the parking lot of  a sports bar. She sang a song that had a refrain in the chorus where she whispered the words, "there is a Communist in the White House."

I think calling President Obama a Communist is over the top. I never do it. "Communist" has a definite meaning. I know President Obama appointed self identified Communist Van Jones to a czarship and I  know that President Obama has close ties to extreme leftist terrorist Dohrn and Ayers.  Nevertheless, I would not myself call President Obama a Communist. Since he does have these close Communist ties however, and since the song was humorous, I did not feel offended by the song and I enjoyed Victoria Jackson's performance.

Now, Victoria Jackson has jumped on the anti-First Amendment bandwagon which wishes to deny Freedom of Religion to followers of the Islamic faith. I am not naive and I think radical Islam is a threat. However, the response to this threat of people who cherish American values should not be to take the position that American's who follow the Islamic faith should be denied their rights as Americans. If Mosques are in-fact breading grounds for terrorist then that is a law enforcement problem.

There are some dark blemishes on America's historic treatment of minorities: the trail of tears removed culturally assimilated peaceful Indians to the west because white settlers wanted their land; in the Jim Crow south, all-white juries acquitted guilty Klansman for lynchings of Black Americans; and in World War II, we imprisoned 120,000 Japanese without trial because we suspected their loyalty.

In all of these events many good people stood by and said nothing.  I fear that some of the more rabid anti-Muslim activist, if they had their way would destroy all Mosque, force Muslims to convert to Christianity and imprison those who did not. Good people should not stand by and let bigotry grow to a dangerous levels. I am very disappointed when I see people who I otherwise think of as good people advocate denying Muslims their Constitutional rights. I am disappointing when I see people who I otherwise think of as intelligent take the view that all Muslims are Islamic radicals.

This anti-Muslim campaign has unfortunately gained a foothold in the conservative movement. Many self-proclaimed Islamic experts are on the speaking circuit spreading fear and ignorance and on the internet preaching hate and there are no shortage of politicians who are willing to pander to the worst in people. This should not grow unchecked.

In reading the comments that accompanied this story, I think Mark Rogers made a couple good observation:

Victoria Jackson as a spokesman for anything is a better joke than any from her years on SNL

 Mrs. Zelnick as an expert on Islam? Does she read or speak Arabic? Has she read the Koran or any learned commentaries on it? Is she familiar with any histories of Islam not written by people who want to abolish the religion?

Well said Mark.

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Mark Rogers, Kicked out of Republican Circles.

I don't know the exact context of the news report to which Mark Rogers left a comment or the exact language of the comment Mark Rogers made that ticked off the female half of the Glen Hughes/Sharon Ford team know as the Tennessee Republican Assembly, but Republican political activist Mark Rogers is deemed kicked out of Republican circles by Sharon Ford. Below is a Sharon Ford Facebook post.

 Herbert Mark Rogers has cleaned up his post. It now reads "The TN Firearms Association has issued a threat to Speaker Harwell if there is no expansion of 'gun rights.' I applaud the Speaker for her performance so far and encourage her to stand up to these political terrorists. " He had another paragraph ripping not only 2nd amendment folks but also called TN Right To Life terrorists. For this he needs to be held accountable. He should no longer be welcome in Republican circles.

Mark Rogers

Glen also wanted everyone to be aware of this dastardly character known as Mark Rogers and told his followers,"You may not know his name but you have been in the same room with him on numerous occasions." I am going to give Glen a helping hand. If you look to the left you will see the no-longer-welcome-in-Republican-cirles Mark Rogers. So, followers of Glen Huges and Sharon Ford, this is the guy you are to shun if in the same room with.
 

Mark, welcome to the club of people not liked by the Huges/Ford wing feather of the Republican party. In a blog post I recently made a harmless snide comment that Ron Paul was going to win the TRA straw poll and maybe TRA should change it's name to "the libertarian wing of the republican Party" from "the conservative wing of the Republican Party." For daring to make such a comment I got purged from good standing as a Republican and got the dreaded label "RINO." Here is the Facebook post:

Once again our friend the irrelevant Rod Williams has chosen to stick his GOP establishment foot in his RINO mouth, by commenting on the post below. Mr. Williams stated “After the convention, maybe TRA needs to change its slogan to, "the libertarian wing of the Republican Party." The Straw Poll is controlled by those who buy tickets and is not an official endorsement of the Tennessee Republican A...ssembly. His implication is both uncalled for and unprofessional even for a two bit blogger. Paid members of the TRA will endorse during the business meeting of the convention. I encourage Mr. Williams if he has issues with the TRA and/or its straw poll to get off his wallet and doing something about it,

Mark, you and I are both in pretty good company. If you read Facebook post of Glen Hughes Sharon Ford and their followers, they don't like Bob Corker, Dianne Black, Beth Harwell or Ron Ramsey either.
 
I have been rethinking my comment that TRA should change its label from "the conservative wing of the Republican Party" to "the libertarian wing of the Republican Party" and think a more fitting slogan is "the stupid wing of the Republican Party."

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Christine O'Donnell likes Hillary Clinton for President in 2012

What?? This is from the I-ain't-believing-this Department.

On ABC's "Good Morning America" on Tuesday, Christine O'Donnell threw her support to an unexpected - and seemingly uninterested - potential 2012 presidential candidate: Hillary Clinton.
"I hope she runs for President," O'Donnell told ABC's George Stephanopoulos, adding that she would even consider becoming a Democrat in order to have the opportunity to vote for her.(link)

Cristy O'Donnell who was the darling of the Tea Party crowd, Cristy O'Donnell of the "I am not a witch" commercial, Cristy O'Donnell who lacked credentials to be elected, is really a RINO. (I think that is the first time I have ever said someone was a RINO.)

As Mark Rogers said about this on his Facebook post, "So the Wicked not-a-witch of Delaware would consider switching parties and voting for Hillary Clinton for President. All of you apologists for that dim bulb need to beat yourselves with whips and make other acts of penitence. That she got so many votes suggests there isn't much 'aware' in Delaware."

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