Why Isn't the Publication of Political Propaganda "Something of Value" to a Campaign?

Calling any Trump speech "electrifying, patriotic,and unifying" is a stretch by any rational standard but this one was full of obvious lies. Of course any column by Ms Charles is usually full of distortions and flat out lies as well, so perhaps she either can't discern fact from fiction or doesn't care. Her claim that 10,000 people were camped out in the rain for "45-plus hours" is a flat out lie. Here's the fact check from CNN:

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Earth and Sky is a great resource for the interested. Today is the longest day in the Northern Hemisphere and the shortest day in the southern one. It's not the hottest day because of the thermal flywheel effect. It just takes time to warm up the ground after winter. The Sun heats us up and the Earth radiates heat back into space, with the maximum temperature typically reached in Late July or early August. For temperatures to remain in the "life zone" heat energy received from the Sun must be balanced by the heat energy the Earth radiates back into space. If the Earth can't radiate all of the heat it receives from the Sun, things warm up forever.

Lots of things affect this balance. Right now in Earth's history, the atmospheric content of carbon dioxide is a growing hindrance to the Earth maintaining the appropriate temperature for life as we know it. By every metric known to science, the Earth is heating up. This is global warming and it is our fault. By burning fossil fuels we have raised the CO2 content of the atmosphere to a point that the Earth cannot radiate an equal amount of heat into space and it is heating up. The fix is easy. Stop doing the thing that is destroying our climate.

We have no where else to go.

I hope you enjoyed Spring 2019. The storms of Summer are upon us.

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Another rare plant in Roane County!

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“All of us know, if you were to ever be contacted by a foreign entity, your first call is the FBI,” Blackburn had said to reporters hours before blocking the bill. “I don’t care if it’s Russia, Norway, China, whomever.”

Except not Trump:

In a new interview released this afternoon by ABC News, President Trump tells George Stephanopoulos that he’d take information from a foreign government if one offered dirt on his 2020 opponent. “I think you might want to listen, there isn’t anything wrong with listening.”

FEC Chair: Didn’t Think I’d Need To Clarify, But Taking Foreign Dirt Is 100% Illegal

Here's good run down on the whole sordid Marsha mess:

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In the United States, Flag Day is celebrated on June 14. It commemorates the adoption of the flag of the United States on June 14, 1777 by resolution of the Second Continental Congress. As a reminder to some of my neighbors here in the South, THIS is the flag of the United States of America.

Republican blocks bill requiring campaigns to alert FBI to foreign assistance

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) blocked an effort by Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) to pass a bill via unanimous consent requiring campaigns to report any offers of foreign assistance to the FBI.

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The drowning death of 2-year-old Steven Pierce has caused state officials to close off access to Cummins Falls. The boy was among dozens of people caught off guard by flooding at the park. Thirteen had to be rescued from teh waters.

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Update: I 40 is open!

Officials closed all westbound lanes of I-40 at mile marker 7.5 in Haywood County, North Carolina, after a rockslide on Monday. Crews reported finding several boulders in a ditch near the roadway and two others on the mountainside that "needed to be pushed up the mountain before they fell," Uchiyama said.

One westbound lane is expected to reopen by 7 p.m. Monday, Uchiyama said. He didn't have an estimate as to when all westbound lanes may reopen.

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CUMMINS FALLS, Tenn. (WTVF) — Authorities have identified the toddler who was swept away by rising water at Cummins Falls State Park as a 2-year-old Kentucky boy.

Jackson County Emergency Management Agency PIO Derek Woolbright said the body of Steven Pierce, of Eddyville, was found around 7:15 a.m. Monday.

Jackson County and Putnam County emergency crews responded to the state park near Cookeville on Sunday after swift water prompted rescues.

Over an 18-hour period, 64 people had to be rescued after a sudden rush of water made conditions dangerous near the gorge. Fourteen of those were evacuated using a rope.

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Assuming we ever again have a clear night, the planet Jupiter is as bright as it gets right now. Good binoculars will show you the 4 big moons but even a small telescope or spotting scope will give you an amazing sight. Show it to a child and be a hero forever to them.

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I'm curious as to how many can name the places in this Trappers journal from the early 1800's? This book was on the shelf in the house we stayed at for our family get away in upper South Carolina. It's a free eBook as it turns out. Quite the picture of the white European insurgence into western North America where people already lived. It's depressing how little some attitudes have changed. Fascinating none the less...

July 4th — I caught about twenty very fine silver trout, which, together with fat mutton, buffalo beef and coffee, and the manner in which it was ground up, constituted a dinner that ought to be considered independent, even by Britons.

Ethics is non existent to these folks.

Attorney Judson Phillips, the founder of Tea Party Nation, has been disbarred again, WSMV-TV reports.

“Mr. Phillips consented to disbarment because he could not successfully defend himself on charges alleged in forty-one pending disciplinary complaints,” according to the Tennessee Supreme Court’s Board of Professional Responsibility.

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Russia elected him and that should scare every American!

The 448-page Mueller report contains copious detail about how Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, both by using social media to influence American voters with misinformation and by hacking into the Clinton campaign’s computers. Russian operatives also connected with WikiLeaks to release the stolen material.

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Check out the Princess Blog for more information: https://princesstheater.blogspot.com/2019/05/two-new-live-shows-annouced-at-princess.html

This is a lot of trouble to go to in order to play golf in Japan on Memorial Day...

The White House wanted the U.S. Navy to keep a warship named for the late Sen. John McCain out of President Donald Trump's view during his trip to Japan, three U.S. officials said Wednesday.

As first reported by The Wall Street Journal, a U.S. Indo-Pacific Command official wrote an email to Navy and Air Force officials about Trump's arrival in Japan over Memorial Day weekend. It included instructions for the proper landing areas for helicopters and preparations for the USS Wasp, the ship on which the president was to speak.

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Saw these folks last weekend at Hippie Jack's Festival...Americana?

Oh yeah! We talked about having them swing by Roane Song at some point.

UT professor Brad Collett and his students will host community workshops in Roane County and four other places along the River this summer. It's part of the pilot program that started in March to hear what people want.

"One of the things that we're hoping to achieve through the pilot program is to sit down with the leadership and with the residents of the community to understand how this project aligns with the needs and priorities," Collett said.

He says communities like Roane County are the start. It's going to take every city's involvement to be successful, though.

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The Republican leader of the Tennessee House gets kicked in the teeth by House vote...

Republican House Speaker Glen Casada was dealt a stunning rebuke by his caucus on Monday in a 45-22 vote to declare the members had lost confidence in his ability to lead the chamber.

Casada, who was only elected speaker in January, had hoped to weather the storm surrounding his office following ...
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The Republican crime family will go through its public contortions today to see which of their lackeys will serve corporations over the people of Tennessee. The FBI is investigating the highly controversial measures used to pass the voucher vote that hands public school tax money over to private corporations. The deeply corrupt GOP is on full display today. I wonder if any of our local broadcast media will cover it?

The 73-member Republican Caucus is scheduled this afternoon to debate a proposed no confidence motion on Casada, 59, amid a nearly three-week storm over scandals involving racist and misogynistic texts as well as other issues.

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This is a fair overview of the crap we are having to endure with our current Republican party. Scandals be damned, they serve their overlords and ignore the people of Tennessee.

At least 10 Republican House members have said Casada should step aside. In a further sign of eroding trust, Democratic lawmakers have also asked law enforcement to explore allegations that Casada's office spied on House members, charges he denies.

The latest scandal erupted when a news outlet reported that Casada's chief of staff, Cade Cothren, may have tampered with emails to make it look like a black student activist violated bond conditions after he was arrested for participating in protests at the Tennessee Capitol.

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From the Knox News Sentinel:

Sword handed down an effective sentence of 12 years in prison last week for David Lynn Richards Jr., who was convicted by a Knox County jury in February on nine felony counts including rape, incest and sexual battery by authority figure for the repeated abuse of his adopted teenage daughter over nearly two years.

"Nothing says 'good Christian man' like rape & incest," reads a tweet posted Monday by @crushthebigots, a self-described entrepreneur and philanthropist who tweets about legal issues. "The prosecutor recommended 72 years in prison. The judge felt he was a good Christian and gave him 12."

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How likely do you think that is? That the whole network of civilization would collapse?

I would estimate the chances are about 49 percent that the world as we know it will collapse by about 2050. I’ll be dead by then but my kids will be, what? Sixty-three years old in 2050. So this is a subject of much practical interest to me. At the rate we’re going now, resources that are essential for complex societies are being managed unsustainably. Fisheries around the world, most fisheries are being managed unsustainably, and they’re getting depleted. Farms around the world, most farms are being managed unsustainably. Soil, topsoil around the world. Fresh water around the world is being managed unsustainably. With all these things, at the rate we’re going now, we can carry on with our present unsustainable use for a few decades, and by around 2050 we won’t be able to continue it any longer. Which means that by 2050 either we’ve figured out a sustainable course, or it’ll be too late.

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Arithmetic seems to be a lost skill but the numbers tell the story:

Citizens are now paying $8 a month for garbage-pickup service; but once the new contract with Waste Connections goes into effect, that rate will increase to $10.50 a month.

That fee would be added to all customers’ water bills, with no way for residential customers to opt out. However, commercial customers may opt out provided they can prove they have other services to get rid of their garbage, such as a container to handle their garbage service.

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If I could end football as a "sport"in public school I would not hesitate!

Stanley Morgan, 64, once a Volunteer of distinction, a near-legend in 14 years of professional football, is a victim of concussions, maybe more than 30

Stanley is convinced his brain has been damaged. He says he is struggling with depression, mood swings and memory loss. He has good days and bad days and a few that are impossible.

The good ones are when he feels like getting out of bed and doing something. He is grateful that he can walk and play golf. He can’t run. That hurts. Running was what he did.

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Happy Mother's Day from Julia Ward Howe...

Again, in the sight of the Christian world, have the skill and power of two great nations exhausted themselves in mutual murder. Again have the sacred questions of international justice been committed to the fatal mediation of military weapons. In this day of progress, in this century of light, the ambition of rulers has been allowed to barter the dear interests of domestic life for the bloody exchanges of the battle field. Thus men have done. Thus men will do. But women need no longer be made a party to proceedings which fill the globe with grief and horror. Despite the assumptions of physical force, the mother has a sacred and commanding word to say to the sons who owe their life to her suffering. That word should now be heard, and answered to as never before.

Arise, then, Christian women of this day ! Arise, all women who have hearts, Whether your baptism be that of water or of tears ! Say firmly : We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country, to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs. From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own. It says: Disarm, disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice. Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence vindicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of council.

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them then solemnly take council with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, man as the brother of man, each bearing after his own kind the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God.

In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women, without limit of nationality, may be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient, and at the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.

— Julia Ward Howe

I have repeatedly said that the GOP looks more and more like a crime family. Speaker Casada has put people on the state payroll who don't work, suppressed evidence in a sexual harassment case against a GOP legislator, and supported the most vile of campaign lies against opponents through his PAC. Now this...

The state confirmed the House Speaker, Lieutenant Governor and the Senate and House Chief Clerks are able to listen to and watch the rooms where committee meetings are occurring.

Democrats claim that it gives people in those offices the ability to spy and listen in on any conversation in those rooms. Democrats held caucus meetings at times in those committee rooms that they thought were in private.

Why wouldn't this be a felony?

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A "pissing contest" for real.

This is from TN State Representative Gloria Johnson...

Tennessee, when your friends are calling you asking you to explain who peed in whose chair, I think it is time for folks to really pay attention to who they are voting for.

Yes, a journalist got a tip that someone peed in a legislator’s chair and this is where we are.

To be clear, I never had to deal with this in 27 years of teaching elementary, middle, and high school.

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Finally the biggest damage to Roane County at the hands of TVA is being addressed: the damage to Roane County's reputation and property values as a result of the ash disaster.

Roane County, Harriman and Kingston have filed a lawsuit against the Tennessee Valley Authority and its prime contractor in the cleanup of the nation’s largest coal ash spill. The lawsuit accuses TVA and Jacobs Engineering of hiding from the public internal records showing a coal ash ingredient list of dangerous toxins, heavy metals and radioactive isotopes; destroying evidence including exposure threat test samples, test results, videos and photographs; tampering with exposure threat testing by watering down monitors designed to warn the public — and the EPA and Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation — to lower results; and lying to the public, ratepayers and TVA’s own board of directors about the cleanup and the toxicity of coal ash both at the time of the spill and now.