Look who "A Better Nashville," a Chamber and John Ingram PAC, is funding for Metro Council.

From The Tennessean, July 14, 2023- A Better Nashville, a political action committee with ties to the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce and John Ingram of Ingram Industries and Nashville SC, contributed a combined $85,000 to district Council races in the second quarter. (link)

Recipients include:

Rob Harris, District 1 ($5,000)

Tonya Hancock, District 9 ($7,500)

Zach Young, District 10 ($7,500)

Sherard Edington, District 11 ($5,000)

Jordan Huffman, District 14 ($5,000)

Jeff Gregg, District 15 ($5000)

Tonya Esquibel, District 17 ($5,000)

Teaka Jackson, District 17 ($5,000)

Tom Cash, District 18 ($2,500)-

Jasper Hendricks III, District 19 ($5,000)

Jacob Kupin, District 19 ($5,000)

Rollin Horton, District 20 ($5,000)

Tasha Ellis, District 29 ($5,000)

John Rutherford, District 31 ($7,500)

Sandy Ewing, District 34 ($5,000)

Jason Spain, District 35 ($5,000)

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Updated list of candidates viewed favorably by the Davidson County Republican Party

by Rod Williams, July 15, 2023- Below is the list of candidate views as "favorable" by the Davidson County Republican Party.  I am still working on my own voters' guide which I will be publishing very soon. My own guide differs from that of the DCRP. 

In my view a candidate does not have to be a Republican for me to view him or her favorably.  On most issues before the council, there is not a proper Democrat or Republican way to vote. There just isn't.  A sane common-sense Democrat is better than a far leftist nutty Democrat and we need a majority of sane reasonable people on the Metro Council. If the choice is between a sane Democrat and a nutty Democrat, I will favor the sane Democrat. Sometimes that is the choice.

Also, electability is a factor. Sometimes I prefer someone who may not exhibit conservative ideologically purity but has a chance of winning over the ideological pure who has no chance of winning. Sometimes the practical choice is not choosing which candidate is best but choosing which candidate is the best among the viable candidates. 

Stay tuned for my voters' guide. 

 

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Where the Sidewalk Extortion Ends

By BRADEN H. BOUCEK & JUSTIN OWEN, National Review, July 15, 2023 - A Tennessee court has stopped Nashville from using permitting to force homeowners to pay for public-works projects the city won’t fund.

Cities have grand dreams of remaking themselves, but their vision of a gleaming urban future keeps evaporating because they are broke. Instead of getting their fiscal houses in order, America’s cities think they have found an easy way out: Make someone else pay. Specifically, you, and not through the regular-but-politically-toxic order of taxation.

For decades cities have used their permitting offices as a mint, withholding valuable permits until citizens agree to extortionate demands to address public problems that officials refuse to solve. The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly compared it to extortion, but the lower courts have done little to stop it.

A landmark legal victory signals that this scam may be coming to an end. (Continue reading)

Rod's Comment: I am pleased to see this story get the national attention it deserves in the prestigious journal National Review. 

I live in a neighborhood with sidewalks and am glad I do and I wish everyone had sidewalks. However, it is wrong to extort money from someone building a house or substantially remodeling a house in order to get those sidewalks. 

To get the full story about this case, visit the Beacon website and read, "Sidewalks to Nowhere: Jim Knight and Jason Mayes."

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Do you want more murders in Nashville? If yes, then vote for Ginny Welch. She tried to slash the police budget by 42%

by Rod Williams, July 14, 2023- When Portland, Oregon slashed their police budget, murders in that city surged by 2,000%.  We were lucky that that same thing did not happen in Nashville. If had been up to Council Member Ginny Welch, Nashville would have suffered same fate. In 2020 she attempted to slash Metro's police budget by 42%. If crime is a problem now, can you imagine the mayhem visited upon our city, had she succeeded? 

Ginny Welch is the absolutely worst Council member to ever serve our city.  She is the most radical member to ever serve and there is not even a close second. She is an activist who has supported all kinds of leftist causes over the years. Her campaign for Council was financed by radicals from out of State.  Contributors to her Council campaign included LIUNA (Laborers’ International Union of North America) among other radical groups. She received the endorsement of The Nashville Justice League and Our Revolution. Welch was a founder of the low-power, left-wing radio station, Radio Free Nashville.

If you live in District 16, please vote for Alexa Little. If you do not, you can still help defeat Welch. While early voting started today, a contribution now, may still have an impact. Campaigns always need money and people to wave signs at polling places. Please help elect Alexa Little and help defeat the most radical person to ever serve in the Metro Council. 

Below is more on Ginny Welch's effort to defund the police.

Radicals lose fight to defund police, instead Council increases police funding by $2.6 million.

Ginny Welch.
Attempt to slash police budget.
by 42% failed.

Russ Pulley.
Successfully added $2.6 million
 to fund additional police.

by Rod Williams, June 18, 2020- While I would have preferred a no-tax-increase budget, our public safety functions are in need of additional funding. If I were creating the budget, I would have tried to modestly increase funding for these services. The police, the 911 call center, ETMs and fire fighters are all understaffed. I would have defunded, reduced or suspended funds for General Hospital, the Human Relations Commission, the Barnes Fund, non-profits, the arts, parks, MTA. the Chamber, the bike lane program, recycling, and the sidewalk program. I would have dropped the idea that no metro employee should ever lose their job. Beyond these cuts, I would have cut library branches, hours or days until the budget balanced. Leadership could have sold such a budget to the public. People can understand that when you lose income, you have to cut expenses.

General Hospital can't fill its beds and poor people have other options ever since Medicaid. Not every city has a charity hospital; it is not required. Even our former progressive mayor Megan Barry proposed closing General. Most recyclables goes to the land fill anyway and the price tag of the program went up $1.5 million this year. It should be suspended until we determine the future of recycling. No one uses the bike lanes, or almost no one. We can halt expansion and no one would notice. We spend millions on sidewalks and don't get new ones. We mostly replace barely deteriorated sidewalks with new clean sidewalks. We should suspend the program until we find out why. In a time of crisis, until revenue returns we can temporarily reduce library service. We could have balanced the budget. If we had leadership who made the case, people would have accepted less services durning a time of crisis.

To his credit, Mayor Cooper in his budget at least recognized the importance of funding the police. His budget proposal included a $2.6 million increase for police. That increase in funding would fund 46 new position. As the budget process advanced, what emerged as the most likely budget to pass was the Mendes substitute budget. His budget proposal cut the $2.6 million for police and put that money into funding step increases for Metro employees. His proposal kept the police funding flat at $209 million.

Meanwhile the radial left composed of Black Lives Matter, Our Revolution, Gideon's Army and a bunch of other organizations united behind this idea of defunding the police. Now, defunding the police does not mean exactly the same thing everywhere it is proposed across the country. Some want to simply reduce police funding and put the money into social services while some want to completely abolish police departments. Nashville's radical community operating under an umbrella group called Nashville People's Budget Coalition proposed slashing the police budget by 42%. Ginny Welch carried the water for the radicals.

Ginny Welch is probably the most radical member of the Council. She is an activist who has supported all kinds of leftist causes over the years. Contributors to her Council campaign included LIUNA (Laborers’ International Union of North America) among other radical groups. She received the endorsement of The Nashville Justice League and Our Revolution. Welch was a founder of the low-power, left-wing radio station, Radio Free Nashville.

Tuesday night, Welch sponsored Amendment 26 to the Mendes budget. It cut the Police by $107,670,143 and the Sheriff by $3,473,855. It got only three votes in favor, a couple abstentions and everyone else voted in opposition. Nashville has a very progressive Council, but they are not totally, completely nuts. We are not yet Seattle or San Franciso. Thank God.

The council then came to Amendment D by Councilman Russ Pulley. Pulley is Chairman of the Council's Public Safety Committee, has worked as a firefighter, paramedic, police officer and state trooper, as well as an FBI agent. He moved to amend the Mendes budget to add back the $2.6 million that had been in the mayor's budget. A lot of people abstained and the amendment got 21 votes, the minimum necessary to pass.

While I am disappointed the Council approved a huge tax increase, I am glad that we did not slash funding for public safety and that we recognized the need to increase funding for our undermanned police department. I commend Councilman Pulley for his leadership. Once the minutes of the meeting are posted, I will report on who voted to fund the police and who voted against public safety funding.

For more on this see this link and this link.

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National publication delves into the political landscape in Tennessee

TNJ: On the Hill - Our friends at the Almanac of American Politics are bringing out their latest reference book, a 2,200-page compendium that includes chapters about Gov. Bill Lee and the political landscape in Tennessee. Senior author Louis Jacobson wrote the volume’s 100 state and gubernatorial profiles, and we have been given the green light to publish the Volunteer […] (View the entire post.)  

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Poll: Tennessee residents overwhelmingly support Trump for president. But, I don't.

By Jon Styf, The Center Square, July 6, 2023 – Tennessee residents support Donald Trump for president in 2024 by a wide margin, according to a new, wide-ranging poll of 1,120 Tennessee residents from Beacon Center.

Trump holds a 49 percentage-point lead over Ron DeSantis with 61% supporting Trump and 12% supporting DeSantis amongst Republicans. Trump also holds a 21 percentage-point lead over Joe Biden in the state, with 55% of the support compared to Biden’s 36%.

If it were a race between Biden and DeSantis, Tennessee voters supported DeSantis with 52% of the vote and Biden with 36%.

“These primary results reflect what we've seen in national polls for months, that a rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump is the most likely scenario in 2024," said Beacon spokesman Mark Cunningham. "It is interesting that Trump fares substantially better against Biden than Ron DeSantis does, and the change came almost exclusively from Republican voters who say they would vote for Trump as their nominee but would not vote at all if DeSantis were the nominee.”

When asked about the decision to indict Trump, 43% approved of the move while 44% disapproved. Of those who voted for Trump in 2020, 17% approved of the decision to indict the former president while 72% disapproved.

The poll also asked Tennessee residents about Bud Light and a recent boycott after the company used transgender woman Dylan Mulvaney for a marketing campaign.

The poll showed that 37% of the Republicans who said they used to drink the beer stopped drinking it after the campaign and only 10% of those Republicans who stopped said they would drink it again. Only 2% of Democrats said they stopped drinking Bud Light due to the marketing campaign. 

Rod's Comment: I am disgruntled, if not disgusted. It will be a cold day in hell before I will ever vote for Donald Trump again. I believe in ordered liberty through constitutional governance and the peaceful transfer of power.

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Advertising in Nashville's mayoral race

 

Tennessee Lookout: Nashville mayor’s race: TV spending points at the voters candidates are targeting.

Candidates are spending the most money on NewsChannel 5, while Fox News tops the cable category.

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America Doesn't Stand with Thugs and Dictators

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The Choice

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Taxes and Crime are the central focus of Alice Rolli's campaign. Q&A With Mayoral Candidate Alice Rolli

Allice Rolli

by Steve Cavendish, Nashville Scene, APR 18, 2023 - ...

... about taxes. ...

Davidson County, Nashville, is the highest taxed city in the entire state, period, full stop, out of the pockets of people. We are paying the most taxes. So I think the challenge is that as the fiscal position corrected, we ought to have not continued increasing spending. We should have started to look at where we could have reduced spending to start to pay down some of our short-term paper and work on our debt issue. My feeling would be to say, “What do I need to pay back so that my kids and grandkids aren't continuing to be burdened with this debt?” And I think what happened instead is our city council and our current mayor said, “What else can I spend more on?” And I actually believe that'll bite us, you know, later as the interest rate environment continues. ... 

What's an issue that we're not talking enough about right now?

Our crime. So currently, Nashville has a massive and persistent gap between crimes that are reported and cleared. And do not hear in that anything against the police. That's not what I'm saying. We're 200 officers short. And with that statement that we've got two-thirds of our crimes that are recorded are never cleared, what starts to happen is criminals become more emboldened because they know they're never going to be caught. And our victims become more silenced because they feel that what they are trying to do to advocate for a crime not happening again, and their shame in that crime happening to them. So I actually believe the thing that we have to talk about is the victim’s justice system, and finding resolution for our victims of crime. And right now, when we see that two-thirds of crimes that are reported are never cleared. That concerns me quite a bit. 

So I do realize that the question is, “How are you going to solve that?” I think it's true, again, there's never a silver bullet, but it's twofold. One, with the 200 officers we are short, I think we would actually argue that when we look at the per capita staffing levels for a city like Nashville, we should actually have even more officers. So in theory, we are actually [a greater number of] officers short. And then two, I think it's a reset in our officers — right — and how we treat our officers and how we treat our police force. Again, I've never worn the uniform, but my husband did [in the military] for 20 years. And it is an honor in wearing a uniform to protect and serve your community. I think, unfortunately — and I think most frontline officers will tell you this — pay is part of it, but so is how we treat and how we value our public safety first responders and police officers. Yes, we need accountability in our police force. We're going to have to make this a place where officers want to come and I think that's going to take more pay, but it's also going to take a different attitude. 

(Read the full article at this link)

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Hottest Days Ever? Don’t Believe It

by Rod Williams, July 7, 2023 - I accept the science community's consensus that the earth is warming, and human activity is a major contributor. However, when global warming alarmist reports that a certain day was the hottest day ever, I'm skeptical and want to know how they know that.  The Wall Street Journal published an article titled "Hottest Days Ever? Don’t Believe It" It looked into the claim by the global warming alarmist industry that July 3 and 4 were the two hottest days on Earth in 125,000 years. The article convinces me that the claim is pulled out of thin air and has no basis in fact. 

For one thing, there is no data from 125,000 years ago. That is just the start of the argument debunking the claim. The article says, "the notion of “average global temperature” is meaningless. Average global temperature is a concept invented by and for the global-warming hypothesis. It is more a political concept than a scientific one. The Earth and its atmosphere is large and diverse, and no place is meaningfully average.

Another problem, the article says, is that our temperature data are imprecise. "It has been estimated that 96% of U.S. temperature stations produce corrupted data. About 92% of them reportedly have a margin of error of a full degree Celsius, or nearly 2 degrees Fahrenheit."

I am not a global warning "denier", but I am skeptical of a lot of the claims of global warming alarmist. Unfounded and exaggerated claims like this one causes people to be global warming skeptics and to not accept the legitimate science of global warming. You can read the full article at this link. 

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