Russia, a hostile foreign power, hacked the Democratic Candidates emails and provided them to the Trump campaign and further interfered in the Presidential election process in order to elect Donald Trump President of the United States of America!

"U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal unveiled on Monday a bill dubbed Robocop that would require phone companies to verify the accuracy of caller ID numbers and provide customers with free technology to block robocalls.

The Repeated Objectionable Bothering of Consumers on Phones is the second robocall bill Blumenthal (D-Conn.) has before the U.S. Senate, after the proposed Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence Act. If put into law, the TRACE bill is designed to promote call authentication and blocking and stiffen penalties among other measures."

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I know you were just sitting around watching the teevee and vegetating, so I post this to get you old people up and dancing. Well, swaying, anyway...

“It would not be impossible to prove with sufficient repetition and a psychological understanding of the people concerned that a square is in fact a circle. They are mere words, and words can be molded until they clothe ideas and disguise.”
― Joseph Goebbels

Trump started the monstrous policy of ripping children from their parents and holding them in cages...blames Obama.

He fired his Homeland Security Chief Kirsjten Nielson because she was too weak to order her subordinates to break the law...Says he ended the policy of child separation.

Children are still locked in cages.

So please, Governor Lee, if you’re not going to promote responsible educational legislation, at least quit pretending you’re the one who’s engaged in a noble effort to lift up the underserved. The dishonesty is appalling and insulting.

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The Rockwood City Council approved the appointment of Dana Scott Pemberton as city judge. Wife of Circuit Court Judge Mike Pemberton, she will finish the term of Judge James “Jim” Smith, who passed away recently.

Our awareness of Dana Pemberton is that she is an excellent attorney and well qualified to serve.

On a vote of 6-4 on Wednesday night, the Roane County School Board selected Coffee County Director of Schools Dr. LaDonna McFall to be the next Director of Schools.

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Snapped these yesterday as we hiked up Piney Creek in Roane County. I would love to see this area become a state natural area. It has been donated to the state of Tennessee and would be a gem for Roane County.

more

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Well of course he is!

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Time: Sat Mar 16 6:02 AM, Visible: 3 min, Max Height: 43°, Appears: 41° above NNE, Disappears: 11° above ESE

Should be a beautiful morning for a Space Station flyover. Post is you see it!

Here's a great video from the ACA (American Canoe Association).

It's true. Republican Teddy Roosevelt was the first Progressive in the Presidency.

Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive movement

Theodore Roosevelt, bynames Teddy Roosevelt and TR, (born October 27, 1858, New York, New York, U.S.—died January 6, 1919, Oyster Bay, New York), the 26th president of the United States (1901–09) and a writer, naturalist, and soldier. He expanded the powers of the presidency and of the federal government in support of the public interest in conflicts between big business and labour and steered the nation toward an active role in world politics, particularly in Europe and Asia. He won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1906 for mediating an end to the Russo-Japanese War (1904–05), and he secured the …(100 of 2862 words)

This is a pet peeve of mine. I don't know why it isn't a bigger issue in elections. We have burdened a generation of college students with a Trillion Dollars in college debt and charge them the highest interest rates in America. This is madness and will weaken America's economic future. Turns out they are crooks:

Last month, the Ed. Department’s Inspector General’s Office issued a scathing report revealing the department’s student loan arm, the Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA), failed to properly oversee all nine student loan servicers that handle the accounts of over 42 million federal student loan borrowers. The audit directly contradicted the Trump administration’s arguments that borrowers receive excellent customer service and protection from substandard practices, stating the FSA is “not holding servicers accountable…[giving] the impression that it is not concerned with servicer noncompliance with Federal loan servicing requirements, including protecting borrowers’ rights.”

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This all show and no real substance. Republicans know this will be struck down. It's all for their foam at the mouth base, as is the white supremacist chatter on their web pages.

Although the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down laws in North Dakota and Arkansas barring abortions after a “fetal heartbeat” is heard, and an Iowa state judge did the same to a similar law in that state, this hasn’t stopped lawmakers in at least 17 other states from introducing and sometimes passing similar bills. The Tennessee House of Representatives passed such a bill Thursday, and a committee in the Georgia House of Representatives has now approved one, too.

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Republicans have long been at war with the public school system in America. We now have a religious extremist governor who will advance that agenda with vouchers and charter schools, neither of which has ever improved education....Not once! They are very successful at transferring public school money into the hands of private operators who never live up to the promise. They do make a bunch of money, though, so I guess that justifies it in the conservative mind.

The Republican governor announced his “parent choice” initiative on Monday before a legislative body that has consistently rejected vouchers in numerous forms. He promised that his plan “will enable low-income students from the most underperforming school districts to attend an independent school of their choice at no cost to their family.”

...Voucher opponents believe that public schools ultimately will pay the price. “We know we have a very finite amount of dollars for public education, and it is not good for our schools when those monies are diverted. This is just a voucher scheme,” said Beth Brown, a Grundy County teacher who is the president of the Tennessee Education Association, the state’s largest teacher organization.

Read the whole article for a balanced view of what we know so far:

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We have a criminal President. It's time we deal with this fact.

Federal prosecutors have said Cohen committed felonies "in coordination with and at the direction" of Trump.

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31 mile canoe trip in the Okefenokee swamp. I'll get back to this as soon as I recover. Ha!

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Final Edition

Due to the lack of interest in trying to get some support to stop the assessor from raising your property taxes. This is my last response on appealing to the State Board of Equalization Commission.

If you should decide to appeal your assessment. I leave you with these last couple of pointers.

Last step is as follow: Do not appeal to the state unless you have a current appraisal and the appraiser that is willing to appear with you at the appeal hearing. Anything less and you might as well not appeal as you will lose.

Next, once you file your appeal you will get a notice of your hearing date. When you get, the notice it will inform you of when you must provide your documents to the state and the county assessor. Please understand that the assessor will use your own documents against you. When you get a date to submit documents make sure that “whatever you do, do not provide your documents more than one (1) day before that date they are due”
The county assessor will get the same notice that you get and they must also provide documents on what they will be presenting to the state and you. You must not give them time to respond to your documents or to setup a defense, they will employ an attorney to question you and your appraiser. It is up to you to not provide them with your documents or appraisal before the due date. If you should decide to be the good tax payer and send in everything early you will lose!!

Last but not least, I have appealed five (5) times and I have lost five (5) times. All I can say, it has not been a good experience and I wish it on no one. My advice to you, is do not waste your money and don’t appeal unless you are totally prepared to lose!!

GOOD LUCK TO ALL

There are few things that concern me more than this. I am amazed at the levels of intentional ignorance. This will kill our children!

Within a century, then, there may be an additional 14 degrees Fahrenheit of warming that previous models haven't accounted for. And 14 degrees of warming, within a century, is a level of calamity far beyond any plausible mitigation attempts. Sea level rise would happen far more rapidly; croplands worldwide would turn unviable; every ecosystem on the planet would be thrown into chaos. The resulting loss of snowpacks, permafrost, glaciers, and Antarctic ice would each compound the effects. All told, it points to precisely the sort of "feedback loop" that climate scientists have long feared, a measure of carbon concentration beyond which the climate does not change gradually, but as if a switch were flipped.

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From the Knox News Sentinel:

Jeffrey Lyash will become the new president and CEO of Tennessee Valley Authority, probably in April.

His hiring was announced Thursday at TVA’s board meeting in Chattanooga.

Lyash is currently president and CEO of government-owned Ontario Power Generation Inc. and chairman of the international nonprofit Electric Power Research Institute...

...And it phased out coal generation in 2014, now relying on water, nuclear and solar power for generation that’s 99 percent free of greenhouse gas emissions, according to the company.

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Paul Manafort is a hardened criminal who “repeatedly and brazenly” broke the law even while serving as Donald Trump’s campaign chairman, special counsel Robert Mueller has said.

'Even Nixon wasn’t like him': Trump's bid to upend Russia inquiry unprecedented, experts say

Mueller’s team said in a new court filing in Washington DC that Manafort deserved a second prison sentence, which could total 10 years, reflecting the seriousness of his crimes.

The prosecutors also said they may ask for that sentence to begin only after Manafort, 69, completes a sentence of up to 24 years for separate convictions in Virginia.

Manafort has shown a “hardened adherence to committing crimes and lack of remorse”, they wrote in a sentencing memo released on Saturday afternoon.

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From NC DOT:

UPDATE: Both directions of I-40 are closed due to a rockslide at MM 7.5. Eastbound lanes are closed at MM 7, the Harmon Den exit. Westbound lanes closed at MM 20 in Waynesville. Detour: Combination of I-40, I-81, I-26 through Johnson City and Asheville.

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An old friend of mine has written a trilogy, fictionalized of course, on the life of Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp. (Check out Mark Warren's "Adobe Moon".)

As I tend to do, I researched Wyatt Earp and found this web site:

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It is fascinating rainy weather reading. Earp, like most historical figures, is more and less than the popular mythology depicts.

Enjoy!

This is very troubling to me:

"Adopting this legislation will further undermine my city's ability to build trust between the policed and the police," Briley said.

Curcio’s bill — backed by Republican leadership and Gov. Bill Lee — would strip Nashville’s oversight board of its subpoena power and eliminate demographic requirements for its members.

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But you may not have heard this on the national news because Mexicans!

A U.S. Coast Guard lieutenant who is an alleged white nationalist with a hit list and a plan “to murder innocent citizens on a scale rarely seen in this country” has been arrested by the FBI in the Washington, DC area.

Christopher Hasson planned to “establish a white homeland” by force

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