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That law requires candidates and members of Congress to disclose their personal finances, so voters can know if they have any conflicts of interest.

Not only did Andy Ogles ignore that law during the campaign, he continues to ignore it today, NewsChannel 5 found.

"It doesn't reflect well on the people he represents back in Tennessee," said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of Open Secrets, a nonpartisan group that tracks the influence of money in politics.

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January 15, 2023
HEATHER COX RICHARDSON
JAN 16

You hear sometimes that, now that we know the sordid details of the lives of some of our leading figures, America has no heroes left.

When I was writing a book about the Wounded Knee Massacre, where heroism was pretty thin on the ground, I gave that a lot of thought. And I came to believe that heroism is neither being perfect, nor doing something spectacular. In fact, it’s just the opposite: it’s regular, flawed human beings, choosing to put others before themselves, even at great cost, even if no one will ever know, even as they realize the walls might be closing in around them.

It means sitting down the night before D-Day and writing a letter praising the troops and taking all the blame for the next day’s failure upon yourself, in case things went wrong, as General Dwight D. Eisenhower did.

It means writing in your diary that you “still believe that people are really good at heart,” even while you are hiding in an attic from the men who are soon going to kill you, as Anne Frank did.

It means signing your name to the bottom of the Declaration of Independence in bold print, even though you know you are signing your own death warrant should the British capture you, as John Hancock did.

It means defending your people’s right to practice a religion you don’t share, even though you know you are becoming a dangerously visible target, as Sitting Bull did.

Sometimes it just means sitting down, even when you are told to stand up, as Rosa Parks did.

None of those people woke up one morning and said to themselves that they were about to do something heroic. It’s just that, when they had to, they did what was right.

On April 3, 1968, the night before the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated by a white supremacist, he gave a speech in support of sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee. Since 1966, King had tried to broaden the Civil Rights Movement for racial equality into a larger movement for economic justice. He joined the sanitation workers in Memphis, who were on strike after years of bad pay and such dangerous conditions that two men had been crushed to death in garbage compactors.

After his friend Ralph Abernathy introduced him to the crowd, King had something to say about heroes: “As I listened to Ralph Abernathy and his eloquent and generous introduction and then thought about myself, I wondered who he was talking about.”

Dr. King told the audience that, if God had let him choose any era in which to live, he would have chosen the one in which he had landed. “Now, that’s a strange statement to make,” King went on, “because the world is all messed up. The nation is sick. Trouble is in the land; confusion all around…. But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars.” Dr. King said that he felt blessed to live in an era when people had finally woken up and were working together for freedom and economic justice.

He knew he was in danger as he worked for a racially and economically just America. “I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter…because I’ve been to the mountaintop…. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life…. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!”

People are wrong to say that we have no heroes left.

Just as they have always been, they are all around us, choosing to do the right thing, no matter what.

Wishing you all a day of peace for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, 2023.

—

Michael Schmidt's Book on Trump Chief of Staff:

John Kelly... came in as chief of staff thinking that Trump needed to have better processes around him. He needed to be staffed better. There needed to be a better system in the West Wing that would keep Trump on track.”

But then John Kelly realized something about Trump that even a blind and a deaf person could figure out.

“Hours and just days into Kelly's tenure, he realized that the problem was far greater than that,” Schmidt said. “The problem was Trump. And Trump was stupider, more impulsive, more limited than he ever thought he would be. Kelly later told someone who I talked to that that he didn't know they made human beings like that.

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The Tennessee Legislature is back in session and no man, woman or child is safe. One of the first things they will take up is to slightly lessen the egregious harm that the TNGOP's murderous abortion law does. As it stands now, for instance, Republican extremists in TN have sentenced a woman with an ectopic pregnancy to death. Yet some women will vote for a Republican. I don't understand voting for your executioner.

Speaking of executioners, Gov. Bill Lee has fired the commissioner of the Dept. of Corrections and appointed a new one who has more expertise in killing people. The state of Tennessee completely botched the last execution and research is underway for new drugs with which to kill people. This is pretty stupid, not that stupid is anything new for Tennessee Republicans, but can't they just pick up enough Fentanyl to do the job? From what I hear it's readily available inside most Tennessee prisons. I know Republicans don't like the idea because it appears to be painless and they prefer some kind of torture, regardless of what the Constitution says about cruel punishment.

If you don't already read it, I suggest you sign up for the Compass, an online Knoxville Newspaper run by Roane County High graduate Scott Barker. Here's a link to an article in which you will learn that there is such a thing as Dragon's Breath, a shotgun shell you can legally buy that can fire a 100 foot flame , and an extremist Catholic paramilitary Group that is trying burn down women's health clinics.

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The crisis of democracy in the United States is not over, not by a long shot. Anti-semitism and anti-LGBTQ violence rose this year, along with white supremacist violence and gun violence, while a right-wing theocratic movement continues to try to garner power. Wealth and its benefits remain badly distributed in this country, and the ravages of climate change are getting worse. Those things– and others– are real and dangerous.

But the country looks very different today than it did a year ago. I ended last year’s wrap-up letter by saying: “It looks like 2022 is going to be a choppy ride, but its outcome is in our hands. As Congressman John Lewis (D-GA), who was beaten almost to death in his quest to protect the right to vote, wrote to us when he passed: ‘Democracy is not a state. It is an act, and each generation must do its part.’”

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"This correlation between early death and heavily Republican voting patterns may be one of the biggest stories of the decade."

Republicans have destroyed rural healthcare in Tennessee, all for nothing more than a political stunt to "own the Libs". Don't wear masks, don't get vaccinated, stop Medicare expansion...Let's face it, Republicans want us dead!

Much has been written in recent years about the demographic collapse Russia is experiencing. In 2021, that nation lost nearly one million in population, following many years of decrease, a pattern that began in the 1980s. Russia's population is now smaller than Bangladesh and its per-capita income lower than that of the Maldives. Male life expectancy has also fallen below that of Bangladesh, a nation with a relatively recent history of dire poverty and famine. In 2022, with Russia confronting combat deaths, economic sanctions and the exodus of at least 900,000 people, most of them young and educated, the demographic decline may have accelerated into free-fall.

Russia's case is considered singular in the developed world, yet there are swaths of rural America that are beginning to replicate it. Owsley County, Kentucky, has a life expectancy similar to that of Russia; from 1980 to 2014, the county's cancer death rate increased by 45.6 percent, the largest increase in the nation. In 2020, Donald Trump received 88 percent of the Owsley County vote. ...

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SM: What’s your take on Mike Pence, having served with him?

JC: Well, I don’t want to be cruel. Basically, a shallow radio broadcaster with the demeanor of a funeral home attendant who is so sympathetic and so concerned, [imitating Pence] “We love old Joe.” And it’s like, “Give me a break.”

Great read:

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The longtime leader of the Tennessee Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence has left the organization. The change comes less than a week after Natasha Senjanovic with WPLN News and Anita Wadhwani with Tennessee Lookout reported on federal findings of whistleblower retaliation at the nonprofit. Read more.

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From the Tennessee Lookout:

The phrase of the day is 'buyers remorse.'

Several times recently, state lawmakers have told media outlets they wish they had put more thought into bills before passing them — or heck, for that matter, wishing they had even read bills before voting for them.

First, Knoxville Republican Sen. Richard Briggs told ProPublica he barely read the "trigger law" bill that would ban abortion after the U.S. Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade.

Today, in a story reported by WPLN, GOP Sens. Page Walley and Janice Bowling expressed regret about passing a bill to hold 3rd graders back a year if they don't meet grade level reading benchmarks on a standardized test.

“I’m not sure we were as thoughtful as we needed to be, legislatively, when we passed the law to begin with," said Walley, who voted for the law.

One wonders if legislators will read bills this year before approving them, like the one Sen. Jack Johnson, R-Franklin, is sponsoring to close public records in death investigations.

The quote of the week goes to Republican Sen. Frank Niceley, who said of Gov. Bill Lee's plan for public-private partnership that could include toll roads:

“Mussolini liked those public-private partnerships. They called it fascism back then."

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"Tonight, referring to the issue of the stolen documents, Trump’s attorney general William Barr told CNN, “I personally think they probably have the basis for legitimately indicting [Trump].... They have the case.”"

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So, in summary, Eddie Mannis was too Republican to be mayor and not Republican enough (in the opinion of the party’s far-right wing), to be a state representative. But hardly anybody came right out and admitted the real reason they weren’t supporting this self-made, philanthropic, lifelong Republican model citizen who happens to be gay.

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti joined with 20 other states to ask the federal government to end a vaccine requirement for healthcare workers, and to withdraw guidance related to the requirement.