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Friday, August 18, 2017
Sen. Bob Corker critical of Trump, says he hasn't displayed 'competence' to be successful
If you have not seen this statement from Bob Corker about Trumps handling of the Charlottsville matter, I urge you to watch it. Unfortunately there is a short add prior to the start of the statement.
I am pleased to see this thoughtful measured statement from Senator Bob Corker. I agree. I agree with Corker that what happened in Charlottsville was repugnant. I agree that making Klansmen and Nazis feel their standing in our nation is enhanced is repugnant. I agree with Croker's critique of Trump's stability and competence.
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Thursday, August 17, 2017
Report on the Council meeting of 8/15/17: Shulman rhymes, rules not suspended to condemn white supremacy, more time to drink beer passes.
At only 56 minutes long, this is a short meeting and there is not much of anything importance happens. To access the meeting agenda, staff analysis and my commentary on the agenda, follow this link. Here is the meeting summary and the highlights:
Sheri Weiner is elected pro tem of the Council in an uncontested election. It is the job of this person to conduct the Council meeting is the absence of the vice mayor.
Councilman Jim Shulman whose term as Chairman of the Rules and Confirmation Committee is ending gives a farewell and the committee report in verse. It's cute. See timestamp 4:30.
An attempt to suspend the rules to introduce a late resolution to condemn white supremacy fails. The sponsor is Councilman Bob Mendez. The rules are to be suspended only in an emergency. The rules cannot be suspended if two council members object and Councilman Doug Pardue and Councilman Tanaka Vercher object. I support the objection to suspending the rules. This is not an emergency. White supremacy will be around in two weeks. To see The Tennessean's report on the issue see Nashville council passes on taking up resolution to condemn white supremacy.
BILL NO. BL2017-829 which would require the Department of Public Works to replace, at no cost to the
homeowner, government-supplied waste containers that are stolen, lost,
or damaged beyond repair is deferred indefinitely, but the sponsor says she is still working on the issue.
BILL BL2017-834 on Second Reading which would amend the time restriction of when beer could be sold or served for on-premises consumption passes. Under this bill a small number of restaurants could sell beer anytime except from 3AM to 4AM. For an explanation of this see the video at timestamp 23:54.
BILL BL2017-826 on Third Reading, which is a disapproved zoning bill in Scott Davis' district, passes without discussion by a vote of 28 to 2 with 5 abstentions and 4 not voting. This bill had to have 27 positive votes to pass. I have no opinion on the merits of the rezoning and the only reason I am mentioning this is because it is a disapproved bill and sometimes is hard to get a disproved bill passed.
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Tuesday, August 15, 2017
The Triumph of Tailgunner Joe.
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| Bill Bernstein |
Eventually people asserted themselves against the idea of boycotting someone for his political beliefs or associations. A blacklisted radio host sued a trade organization for damage and was supported by the liberal stars of that era: Louis Nizer, Edward R Murrow and others. The principle established was: people are entitled to their own beliefs. Even if we find them objectionable. Boycotting and outing are not the American way.
Senator Joe McCarthy died in 1957, a disgraced alcoholic reviled by liberals of the day. But somewhere in Heaven ole Tailgunner Joe must be smiling. His principle of waging economic war on those holding objectionable beliefs has become the new normal. Hardly a day passes without Leftists "outing" people opposing their agenda and having them fired, or Conservatives declaring a boycott of some business or actor due to their objectionable statements. The quaint liberal notions of free speech and free association have been thrown aside. And the range of "objectionable" has grown far beyond McCarthy's era, when yearning for Communist revolution was the standard for shunning. Now supporting views expressed by Candidate Obama in 2007 is enough to get one blacklisted and fired.
Needless to say this stifling of speech and thought will not end well. It never does. People croaking about "diversity" would be well to ask how many Conservatives are in their organization, how many Socialists they rub shoulders with daily. At one time the idea was America was a "marketplace of ideas" where ideas competed for adherents. We had a confidence that American liberal values (that is, Classical Liberalism) would win out eventually. That idea is gone, replaced with rigid lines enforced with sanctions. The resulting groupthink will not make the country stronger. The very opposite.
Bill Bernstein first came to Nashville in 1980 as a freshman at Vanderbilt. After finishing he spent time in graduate schools in Classics. He returned to Nashville in 1992 and has been a firearms dealer and Second Amendment advocate for over a decade
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Monday, August 14, 2017
Sunday, August 13, 2017
(update) What's on the Council agenda for 8/15/17: More time to drink beer and more corporate welfare.
The Metro Council will meet Tuesday, August 1, 2017 at 6:30 PM in the
Council chamber at the Metro Courthouse.
This will again be a meeting that is more boring than usual. There is
nothing on the agenda likely to generate passion or debate. To watch the
Council meeting, you can go to the courthouse and watch the
meeting in person, or you can watch the broadcast live at Metro Nashville Network's Government TV on Nashville's Comcast Channel 3 and AT&T's U-verse 99 and it is streamed live at the Metro Nashville Network's livestream site. You can catch the meeting the next day (or the day after the next) on the Metro YouTube channel.
If can stand the suspense and just wait, I will post the video on
this blog the day after or the day after that and provide commentary.
If you are going to watch the Council meeting, you need a copy of the Council agenda
and the Council staff analysis or you really will not know what is
going on. You can get the agenda and analysis at the highlighted links. This is going to be another boring meeting. There is not much that will generate passion or controversy on this agenda. Below are the highlights.
Election of President Pro Tem.
The first order of business following the Call to Order and Invocation, Pledge of Allegiance, Roll Call, and Approval of Minutes is an election of the Council President Pro Tempore for a one-year term ending August 31, 2018. This person's primary duty is to conduct the meetings in the absence of the vice mayor. The pro tem also conducts the meeting that precedes the regular council meeting at which council members make announcements. This position is prestigious and sometimes candidates really lobby for it. Others times only one person wants the position and they get it. Council member Sheri Weiner is the only one seeking the position to my knowledge.
Resolutions
There is one insignificant resolution on public hearing which approves a distance variance for an establishment seeking a beer permit. There are eight resolutions on the agenda all of which are on the consent agenda. None appear controversial. Two are allowing signs to overhang a sidewalk and most of the others are accepting grants and one is honoring Judge J. Randall Wyatt, Jr. upon his retirement.
Bills on Second Reading
BILL NO. BL2017-829 would require the Department of Public Works to replace, at no cost to the
homeowner, government-supplied waste containers that are stolen, lost,
or damaged beyond repair. Currently if someone runs over
your waste container at the back of your house on the alley, or if
someone steals it, you the occupant have to pay to replace it. I support this bill. It was on the agenda last meeting but deferred to this meeting.
BILL BL2017-834 would amend the time restriction of when beer could not be sold or served
BILL BL2017-836 is a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes (PILOT) deal for the Keystone Automotive Industries to build an administrative office. This is the kind of corporate welfare that almost all cities engage in. We will in effect be subsidizing this company about $1.23 million and they promise to create 120 new jobs. That is a little over $10K per job. I would hope the Council would reject this. For more on this, read the bill and see the staff analysis.
BILL BL2017-837 authorizes the acquisition of property for the purpose of building a new Metropolitan Nashville Police Precinct on Murfressboro Rd.
Bills on Third Reading
There are 23 bills on Third Reading and almost all are rezoning bills. The only bill of interest is BILL BL2017-826 which is a disapproved bill in Scott Davis' district. I have no opinion on the bill but am simply calling attention to it because it is disapproved. It takes 27 votes in favor to pass a bill disapproved by the Planning Commission. Some in the media and some neighborhood activist types think the Council should never pass a disapproved bill.
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Saturday, August 12, 2017
Bill Lee advocates for school vouchers in Beacon Center interview.
In a live stream Facebook interview Thursday August 10 with the Beacon Center of Tennessee, gubernatorial candidate Bill Lee advocated for more school choice saying he would support school vouchers and "be a strong advocate for school choice in every area of the state." He also said he would support removing barriers to work such as unnecessary licensing requirements for some professions and he would support stronger work requirements for those on public assistance. He also advocates for criminal justice reform. You can watch the full interview at this link. There is some dead air time at the start of the video and the interview starts at timestamp 1:45.
The Beacon Center has invited all of the candidates for governor to a live Facebook interview. Scheduled interviews are as follows:
Mae Beavers, Friday, August 25th, 2:45 PM CT
Randy Boyd, Tuesday, September 12th, 2 PM CT
One may participate in the interview by submitting questions while the interview is in progress or emailing questions in advance to questions@beacontn.org along with your name and the city or town in which you live.
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Rigged: The Injustice of Corporate Welfare
Ikea came to Memphis with great fanfare thanks in large part to a $9.6 million subsidy. How is that just to the independent furniture stores in the Memphis area.
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Friday, August 11, 2017
Being an illegal alien does not make one a criminal.
Writing in today's Tennessean, immigration control advocate Donna Locke had me nodding my head in agreement and saying, "I glad someone is saying that." This is the first sentence of her essay that elicited my positive response:
In response to recent reporting and commentary, it's worth noting that our country now contains a multitude of people devoted to erasing all distinctions between illegal aliens and legal immigrants and between non-citizens and citizens.She is exactly right. In newspapers and radio and TV reports, legal and illegal immigrants are lumped together and simply called "immigrants." There ought to be a distinction. I do not believe the erasing of the distinction is without intent. The intent is to change the way we think about the issue. It is part of the liberal agenda. Not that I think mainstream media people get their marching orders daily from a secret bunker in the basement of the New York Times, but the groupthink of liberalism causes some words to fall out of fashion. Politically correct people just do not use certain terms and one of them is "illegal alien" or "illegal immigrant."
Using the term "illegal alien" is like using the term "Negro;" it is just something that enlighten educated sensitive people do not do. It is the way "gay" has replaced homosexual. Journalist, I think, see it as their job to influence the way people think about things. They see it as their job to make people better. Using the term "illegal alien" is sort of like calling an unwed mother an "unwed mother" rather than a "single mother." It is impolite and by changing the terminology, the way people think about things can be changed. The closest mainstream media people can come to drawing a distinction between legal and illegal immigrants is in using the term "undocumented immigrant," and they only use that term reluctantly when necessary to understand the content of the story.
After eliciting my head nodding agreement in the first sentence, Ms Locke started to lose me in the second sentence when she wrote:
We see every conceivable effort to hide and deny the words "illegal" and "criminal" in regard to foreigners who entered our country without our government's permission or remained here after their legal visas expired.She then went on to say:
As for attempts to paint illegal aliens as noncriminals, illegal entry and visa overstay are criminal, deportable offenses, and U.S. immigration courts can put these offenders into detention (prison) and sentence them to serve time till they're deported.Calling all illegal aliens "criminals," is as offensive and agenda driven as is erasing the distinction between legal and illegal immigrants. By labeling all illegal aliens as criminals, it puts in the same category those who simply over stayed a visa with those who are M-13 gang members or rapist. It is an agenda driven attempt to demonize all illegal aliens and influence the way we think about them. Actually, illegal aliens commit less crime than the average American. This is fact and one can look it up.
What is a criminal? If a friend said of a mutual acquaintance, "Well, you know he is a criminal." I would think the person had committed a serious crime. I would think he committed armed robbery or burglary or embezzled funds or defrauded someone. Those who use the term "criminal" to define someone who overstayed a visa or illegally entered the country will defend calling the illegal aliens "criminals" by saying, they entered the country illegally so by definition they are criminals.
By saying that anyone who does something illegal is a criminal, then we are all criminals. With a vast bureaucratic state with bureaucrats empowered to promulgate rules which are in effect laws, I doubt there is no one not guilty of breaking some law. I can think of two laws I am guilty of violating right now and that does not include the driving offenses of which I have been guilty.
If someone said of a mutual acquaintance, "Well, you know he is a criminal." I would not think that he is someone who littered, jaywalked, ran a red light, or engaged in home sharing without the proper permit. I would not even think of someone found guilty of drunk driving or soliciting a prostitute or guilty of procession of marijuana as a criminal.
Entering the Country illegal or overstaying a visa is a federal misdemeanor. It is more like jaywalking than breaking and entering.
Here is a list of some other federal misdemeanors.
- Transportation of water hyacinth
- Failure to pay legal child support obligations
- Desecration of the flag of the United States
- Wearing a military ribbon or medal to which one is not entitled
- Fraudulently using the 4-H Club emblem
- Unauthorized use of the "Smokey Bear" character or name
- Transportation of fireworks into a state prohibiting the sale or use of fireworks
- Hunting, trapping, or fishing on Indian land without a permit.
I am not defending illegal immigration, but find it just as offensive to paint all illegal aliens as criminals as I do to erase the distinction between illegal immigrants and legal immigrants.
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