Wednesday, January 21, 2009

TO The Tennessee Legislature: Please Move to Another State

S & P downgraded the debt of International Lease Finance today to BBB+.  Some speculate that this may throw a wrench in the ongoing process to sell this AIG unit. Bloomberg.com:   While Bill Gross has commented on his purchase of both AIG bonds and those issued by two of its subs including International Lease, I just want my money back in May and August of this year from ILFC.

The Tennessee state legislature always finds a way to prove on almost a daily basis the many frailties and foibles of human beings.  In fact, rarely do I notice anything resembling human virtues from any of them.  I would just say, for the most part, that our state legislators are just a constant source of embarrassment for this native Tennessean, born in 1951, and they are always willing to provide me with a source of amusement.  They are apparently unaware  of how ridiculous most of them are to many of their fellow citizens.  Some may know that the GOP has just secured a majority in the State House by one vote for the first time since Reconstruction, and were getting ready to celebrate the appointment of their first Speaker of the House.  Everything was in the bag.  The Democrats, being crafty souls, turned one GOP legislator and offered him the Speakership if he would appoint a Democrat as the deputy.  The votes were cast and all of the Republicans voted for their two candidates with just one exception, a gentlemen by the name of Kent Williams who voted for himself to be Speaker and he was joined by all the Democrats, thus defeating the best laid plans of the GOP.  Williams then joined all the Dems to vote for a Dem as the deputy.  This just outraged the GOP, and today one of their members filed an ethics complaint against the newly anointed GOP speaker installed by the Dems and himself. The charge was that the Speaker had allegedly told a young lady representative of the same tribe that he would give a week's pay to see her naked.
 www.tennessean.com | The Tennessean www.tennessean.com | The Tennessean  The origin of the claims came from a memo prepared by the GOP stalwart's whose dream of being Speaker was dashed by the "traitor" Williams and those conniving Democrats.

What are the priorities of the  GOP majority in the Tennessee House? Is it the gaping 1 billion dollar budget hole? Is it the rising unemployment rate, schools, foreclosures, health insurance, etc?  No there are on a mission to pass a constitutional amendment to be voted on by our citizens to remove privacy rights in the state Constitution just in case the Supreme Court later reverses Roe v. Wade.   The other major concern is to expand the places people can take their weapons. WBIR.com I read a few months ago that the GOP in Georgia managed to pass a bill allowing guns to be taken into the Atlanta airport terminal.  NYTimes.com  Yes, it is hard to believe that a political party wants to endorse carrying weapons on public transportation and would be incredibly hostile to anyone who thought this might not be such a good idea.  This would take the form of mostly vitriolic spiel which passes as intelligent conversation for those who think in three, sometime four or five word cliches.  This is the GOP in our fair state of Tennessee. Conservative is a totally inappropriate description for them.  But some say that is better than seeing a movie shot by the FEDs showing some Democrat State Senator stuffing wads of cash in his coat to assist the lubrication of some special legislation.  Now, isn't it easy to see how someone becomes an independent in Tennessee and then I can freely be an equal opportunity critic of both tribes.  Really, there is not that many major policy differences between the two tribes in the state house and senate, with the main goal of both tribes simply to secure a majority, with all of the perks that goes with that power,  with the main policy differences being  the Democrats are not as vigorous as the GOP in wanting guns everywhere and a complete removal of privacy right protections in the State Constitution.  Really, you can see the GOP's point.  If some terrorist pulled a weapon in a airport terminal or on a bus, all of the good citizens could pull out their weapons and start a free fire zone, with guns a blazing including a few machine guns as the unarmed souls including the young ones dive for cover.

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