“I think Mr. Skrmetti should take his patriarchal ideological crap and shove it where the sun doesn’t shine,”

Heidi Cambell 

by Rod Williams, July 29, 2023 - If you are a progressive who somehow stumbled upon this site, welcome; I am glad you are here. If you are looking for a real fighter for your progressive causes, if you want an angry mayor, if you want someone who won't compromise her values, someone who won't back down, who sees no nuisances or shades of grey but only righteous progressives and evil everybody else, someone who will be confrontational, someone with certainty of the moral righteousness of the cause, someone whose mind is made up and won't be bothered by the facts, and someone who won't be bothered by niceties of politeness in the face of evil, you need to vote for Heidi Campbell. 

Heidi Cambell is the real deal. She is the angry, in-your-face, take-no-prisoner, progressive you are looking for. 

Among the major candidates, with the exception of Alice Rolli, are all liberal. They are all liberal but that doesn't mean they are all the same. The front runner is Freddie O'Connell. He is adequately liberal, but he is not the kind of guy who would tell someone to "shove it where the sun doesn't shine."  He is too thoughtful and well-mannered. The other progressive candidates are about the same to one degree or another. The only real self-righteous warrior for social justice in this race is Heidi Campbell. 

For the rest of you reading this who care about why something is done rather than having a knee-jerk progressive spasm, the issue that caused Campbell to have her spasm was the State Attorney General pushing back against a proposed federal rule change to block states from acquiring data on patients seeking out-of-state abortions.  Our AG joined 18 others in opposing the rule. (link) 

The reason the rule was opposed, and legal action brought by the 19 State Attorney Generals is because the rule change was an overreach of bureaucratic federal authority.  If that rule is to be national policy, they argue, then it should be passed by Congress not imposed by bureaucratic fiat. This is a basic divide in political thought. Some believe the bureaucracy should have very broad power to make rules for us, and some believe that bureaucrats should only make rules within the parameters of the rule-making authority Congress has granted them. Reasonable people can disagree on which is the best approach. For those who believe in representational governance as opposed to bureaucratic governance, they must push back against every overreach.  Below is the AG's statement on the issue. 

Attorney General Skrmetti’s Statement on Proposed HHS HIPAA Privacy Rule

Friday, July 21, 2023, Nashville – In response to public interest in a recent comment letter Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti joined related to a rule proposed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”), General Skrmetti issues this statement:

In June, I joined eighteen other state AGs in opposing rulemaking by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.  I did so because the proposed rule is a hastily-assembled mess that is bad for Tennessee and bad for America.

Some confused commentators have equated my opposition to this rule with asserting a right to prosecute women who go out of state for abortions.  This is simply not true: Tennessee’s abortion law does not apply to women who seek abortions, I have no enforcement authority with respect to Tennessee’s abortion law, and I am the attorney general of Tennessee and not some other state.

The proposed rule illegally exceeds the scope of HHS’s statutory authority.  Major changes to the law require legislation, not bureaucratic decrees.  Further, the proposed rule unconstitutionally interferes with state enforcement of state laws.  The proposed rule plays politics with healthcare data privacy at the expense of consistency and coherence.

We get it: the administration does not like any limits on abortion.  But the Constitution gives states, not the federal government, the authority to regulate abortion.  Members of the administration are free to engage in persuasion and politicking on their own time to try to change state laws.  They cannot abuse the powers of the federal government to usurp the lawful authority of the people of the states.  We have enough problems to address at the federal level without illegitimately dragging state-level problems into the mix.

The proposed rule is bad for Tennessee and bad for America, and I will continue to oppose it.”

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