Tag: Bob Corker

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Politics Politics Feature

James Mackler: A Democrat in the Senate?

Can a Democrat be elected to the U.S. Senate from Tennessee? James Mackler, a Nashville lawyer and Army veteran, intends to find out. Mackler was in Memphis on Tuesday as part of an ongoing tour in which he is acquainting himself with Tennesseans across the state and simultaneously getting them acquainted with him.

Mackler is a political newcomer, making his first bid for office as an aspirant for the Senate seat now held by Republican Bob Corker and on the ballot in 2018. Besides having begun his race as an unknown, he confronts the fact that no Democrat has served in the Senate from Tennessee for a full generation, since then incumbent Senator Jim Sasser was upset by Republican Bill Frist in 1994.

Neither circumstance fazes Mackler, who sees his race as a case of  answering a call to public service. This is the second time he has felt such a call. As he puts it, the first time was on September 11, 2001, when the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington prompted him to “shut down” his law practice and join the Army, becoming a Blackhawk helicopter pilot in Iraq and later serving in the Army’s JAG (legal) corps.

“I needed to do something to make a difference,” he explained on Tuesday. “I resigned from my job to run for the U.S. Senate for the same reason. I felt called back to service, and I believe my track record of service will appeal to voters across Tennessee, especially those ready for change.”

So, for the second time, troubled by “seeing what our leaders in Washington aren’t doing,” Mackler left his law practice and hit the road as a candidate. There was a personal motive as well. His daughters, students at a private Jewish school in Nashville, were evacuated from their school four times for bomb threats — part of a wave of such actions nationwide.

“I was so upset that our country has become so divided and that I had to explain that to my girls. It was a critical moment,” he says.

Mackler’s platform focuses on three issues: “jobs, health care, and education.” He sees incumbent Republican Corker as especially vulnerable on the health-care issue, having voted with the majority of his party in several unsuccessful efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Mackler might take comfort from a poll taken earlier this month by Public Policy Polling, a company that normally takes its surveys in tandem with Democratic causes and candidates and was paid for by the health-care advocacy group Save My Care.

That poll was taken from a sample of 663 registered Tennessee voters during the period of August 11th-13th by robo-call, a method whereby a recorded message poses questions to persons on a pre-selected call list and listeners who hear the message out are invited to respond by using the numbers on their dial pad.

That poll purported to show Corker with a favorable job-performance rating of 34 percent, as against an unfavorable rating of 47 percent and found that less than half of those surveyed would vote for Corker, while 37 percent would vote for an unnamed Democrat.

Besides Democrat Mackler, a first-time candidate who is in the process of introducing himself to a state constituency, two Republicans with some pre-existing name identification have also talked of opposing the senator.

One is former state Representative Joe Carr, an ultra-conservative who garnered a respectable 40 percent in a 2014 primary race against Tennessee’s other Republican senator, Lamar Alexander. Another, who also occupies a place on the GOP’s right wing, is current state Representative Andy Holt, who has referred vaguely to “multiple polls” but has not identified them or cited any particulars.

And, of course, there are even vaguer soundings taken by President Trump, who responded to Corker’s recent criticism of him for lacking “stability” and “competence” with a tweet that said: “Strange statement by Bob Corker considering that he is constantly asking me whether or not he should run again in ’18. Tennessee not happy!”

For all that, two recent polls — one released by Vanderbilt University showing Corker with a 52 percent approval rating and another taken by the polling company Morning Consult giving the Senator a 57 percent approval rating — would seem to bolster Corker’s chances.

In any case, Mackler knows he has his work cut out for him. His rounds in Memphis on Tuesday included an appearance at a Latino Leadership Luncheon and an evening fund-raiser. And, as he indicated, he intends to be back, again and again.

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Politics Politics Feature

Corker as Change Agent

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

As has been the case more often than not, Tennessee possesses political figures of great potential to influence national policy. A case in point is the state’s junior U.S. Senator, Bob Corker, who holds the pivotal position of chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Like many of his Senatorial colleagues, Corker often includes in his prepared remarks veritable rabbit-warrens of ambivalence that, in ordinary discourse, happily, he can discard in favor of plain talk.

A case of that occurred last week when the Senator was in Tennessee in the aftermath of President Trump‘s awkward rhetorical attempts to suggest a moral equivalence in the clash between white nationalists and counter-protestors in Charlottesville, Virginia.

In Knoxville on Wednesday, faced with a battery of reporters, Corker was asked about the president’s remarks and promptly began to equivocate.

He and the president had a “healthy relationship,” Corker said. “Each of us has our own style. We go about things in a different way.”

Pressed a little harder, he said, “I did not see them [Trump’s comments]. I don’t see a lot of television, I apologize … Look, I respond in my own way. My comments are the ones I focus on, and I think the media does a plenty good job and has plenty of panelists on and others giving editorial comment about other peoples’ comments and mine.”

Pressed still further later on, the senator said, “Look, I let the president’s comments speak for themselves. There are plenty of people who editorialize about those. I’m responsible for my comments and how I feel, and people editorialize about those, too … I mean I don’t know what ginned up the event in Charlottesville except that there was a lot of hate on display there. Again, certainly it needs to end.”

A final query came from a reporter in Knoxville who was still unsatisfied and asked Corker if it wasn’t time to take a stand rather than “walking in the middle of the line trying to make everybody happy.”

The senator’s response? “I just think everybody has to speak on these issues the way they feel best.”

Then came Thursday and another Q and A with reporters after Corker’s speech to the Rotary Club of home-town Chattanooga. Similar questions came the senator’s way, and he answered in slow, measured sentences that sounded less cautious than the product of serious overnight deliberation.

“I do think there needs to be some radical changes. The president has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability or the competence he needs to demonstrate. … He has not demonstrated that he understands what has made this nation great. … Without the things I just mentioned happening, the nation is going to go through great peril. … We should hope … that he does some self-reflection, does what is necessary to demonstrate some stability, to demonstrate some competence, to demonstrate that he understands the character of our nation. …”

Corker went on: “We’re at the point where there have to be radical changes at the White House itself. It has to happen. I think the president needs to take stock of the role he plays in our nation and move beyond himself.

“We need to speak to what’s good in our nation. Neo-Nazi groups, KKK groups … are not what’s good in our nation. I don’t think that the president has appropriately spoken to the nation on this issue, and sometimes he gets in a situation where he doubles down to try to make a wrong a right. I think he’s done that in this case. I would ask that he take stock of who he is as president of all the people in our nation.”

The world promptly took notice, with CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, and the Washington Post in the van and all weighing in yuuge! History may demonstrate that it was Corker’s studied afterthought that stirred the pendulum of change into motion. Or not.

Just as history may yet demonstrate that it was the senator from Tennessee who, at some point in his tenure as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (or as ranking member if the Democrats are to take over the Senate after 2018) played a fundamental role in resolving the seemingly unending Afghanistan quagmire.

The senator issued a statement in a press release following Trump’s televised Monday night address in which the president vowed to keep on keeping on in Afghanistan.

Corker’s statement was as follows:

“I had the opportunity to talk with Secretary Tillerson in advance of this evening’s address, and while I look forward to receiving additional details, I support the direction President Trump laid out tonight for the U.S. role in Afghanistan.

“While there are certainly substantial questions about whether Afghanistan has the capacity over time to provide stable governance to its people, this more focused plan provides the U.S. military with the flexibility it needs to help the Afghan military regain momentum. It also utilizes a conditions-based approach for our military, which should lead to better diplomatic outcomes and ensures engagement with regional partners, especially Pakistan and India, giving us a better opportunity for success.”

I could not help but contrast that seemingly acquiescent statement with Senator Corker’s extended and thoughtful response on the Afghanistan — and Pakistan — matter when I talked with him about it in Washington in 2011. Here is a relevant portion of those remarks:

“I think we’ve known for a long time that Pakistan plays both sides. They’ve been able to get aid from America by being a bad actor. It’s a leverage they use. I just left a Foreign Relations Committee meeting where I talked about this. Whether they’re in cahoots or incompetent, this has been an embarrassment for their country, and it provides a relationship-changing opportunity.

“The fact is, if you travel through Afghanistan, as I’ve done many times, and you talk to our military leaders, they’re unbelievably frustrated, because they’re fighting a war in a country where our enemies are not. And on the other hand we’re providing aid to a country where our enemies are. To me, and this is what I really pressed hard in this last hearing on, this is where our focus needs to be.

“[Pakistan is] where all the Al Qaeda and Taliban leadership [is], their accounting network, they’re all there. … So to me this creates an opportunity for us to bear down on ridding that country of the enemies that we’re fighting in Afghanistan but happen to reside in Pakistan.

“I’ve been very skeptical about the efforts there for some time. … [O]ur men and women in uniform, I hold them in highest esteem in carrying out their mission, but much of what they’re fighting [in Afghanistan] is just criminality. … So much of what our soldiers are fighting there is criminality. Again, the head of the monster, if you will, exists in Pakistan. …”

Nothing said Monday night by Trump or by any of the many respondents to the president’s address, including Corker himself, equals the wisdom of perceptiveness of that 2011 analysis, and there is no reason to believe the senator’s views have changed appreciably.

Meanwhile, here is a fresh view of the matter from another Tennessean, 9th District Congressman Steve Cohen:

“… After 16 years of war, we have not made great progress because there have been issues of corruption in the Afghan government and the Afghan people are ambivalent toward their government and toward the eventual outcome of the war. … My thoughts are with the soldiers who were watching tonight’s speech and their fellow soldiers, some of whom will sacrifice their lives in what is a war without a likelihood of success. God bless our American troops.”

Rep. Cohen’s view is entirely consistent with what Senator Corker said lo, those six years ago, and may yet, in some way or another, have the opportunity to say again. Perhaps, it is often rumored, as a presidential candidate himself.

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Editorial Opinion

A Call to Arms on Health Care

It was a heck of a party, jammed to the rafters and brimming with overflow energy. The only problem was that the chief invited guests were a no-show, though no one was much surprised by that.
We’re talking about last Saturday’s town hall on health care at the IBEW union hall on Madison, sponsored by a generous assortment of local organizations devoted to the subject and dedicated to the preservation of the Affordable Care Act, currently under threat of elimination by a GOP-dominated Congress and a fellow-traveling tag-along president.

In theory, Tennessee’s two Republican Senators, Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker, both regarded as antagonistic toward the ACA (aka Obamacare) were to be the guests of honor, but, as was relayed with heavily underscored irony early on by co-host Mary Green of the progressive group Indivisible, both senators had responded that they had “schedules that would not allow them to come.”

That got an appropriate mix of groans, sardonic laughs, and boos from the audience, and the laughter got more uproarious when Green drew attention to the fact that Alexander and Corker, along with fellow Obamacare opponent David Kustoff, the GOP congressman from the 8th District, were all represented at the meeting by life-size cardboard cutouts that were “questioned,” mocked, and scolded in the course of the meeting.

Another Indivisible host, Emily Fulmer, noted the fact that passage of the pending Senate bill, disingenuously called the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA) would mean $880 billion in cuts for Medicaid, which in one form or another pays for the medical needs of 60 percent of the American population.

Aftyn Behn of the Tennessee Justice Center presented slides demonstrating, among other things, that BCRA would mean disastrous cutbacks for hospitals and programs designed to curb the current opioid epidemic. Tennessee, she observed, owned the dubious distinction of having the nation’s leading rate of hospital closures, “with more rural closures coming, including one in Blount County on Lamar Alexander Parkway.” That got the wry laugh it deserved.

Ashley Coffield of Planned Parenthood pointed out that the bill included a provision to “defund” her organization and prohibit women, children, and men from availing themselves of the wide range of “affordable, high quality, and non-judgmental health care” offered by Planned Parenthood.

Allison Donald of the Center for Independent Living and ADAPT, which sees to the needs of the disabled, saw services to these “most vulnerable” about to be disrupted. Physicians Art Sutherland and Tom Gettelfinger pointed out the ongoing hijacking of heath care by self-serving corporations and the outrageous spike in therapeutic drug prices. Essence Jackson of Sistercare proclaimed the obvious: “Health care is not a privilege; it’s a human right!” And Virgie Banks of the COPPER Coalition exhorted, “Keep the pressure on!” As she and the others noted, the BCRA will likely come to a vote the week of July 24th.

It would behoove all of us with a concern for the general health and welfare our citizenry to pay heed to what was said on Saturday.

Categories
Editorial Opinion

Time for Town Halls on Health Care

CREDIT: Greg Cravens

A group of local Democrats, acting on the premise that several key elected officials representing this area have been less than accessible to constituents wanting to express themselves on pending health-care legislation, have scheduled their own “town hall” meeting on the matter for this Saturday, July 8th, at the IBEW Meeting Hall on Madison.

It remains to be seen how much of a turnout this event will generate beyond the party cadres who organized it, although the city and its environs certainly contain a fair number of health-care activists, as well as a considerable complex of medical-related sites, and, needless to say, as a poverty capital of sorts, a largish number of individuals whose need for medical care is both acute and problematic.

Greg Cravens

Local Republicans may either ignore the event or dismiss it as a political stunt, which, in some measure, it may very well be. But that does not diminish the need for such public ventings of the health-care issue, especially since the three elected officials pinpointed by organizers of Saturday’s event — Senators Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker and 8th District congressman David Kustoff — have indeed not been as forthcoming to their constituents as they might be, though all have, to some degree, posted official statements on the matter.

Unfortunately, these tend to reflect standard Republican talking points against the Affordable Care Act (aka “Obamacare”) rather than involving direct interactions with members of the public, many of whom depend on the ACA and fear its extinction. To the extent that statements by the three officials have been part of an actual discussion, they belong to the rote responses and the dueling positions of a highly partisan Capitol Hill.

To be sure, any effort to discuss the health-care issue in a genuinely open public meeting risks being caught in a crossfire of conflicting accusations and demands. We have all seen clips of such meetings held elsewhere. So far there have been none locally, beyond a three-hour no-holds-barred town meeting in the cavernous East High School auditorium held earlier this year by Memphis’ Democratic congressman Steve Cohen. As it happened, discord was not a feature of that jam-packed affair, though Cohen has certainly been willing to take his risks and, as may be, his lumps — which was the case in 2009 when a Tea Party crowd challenged him for his support of the Affordable Care Act at a boisterous meeting at the Bridges building downtown.

Now, with repeal-and-replace efforts underway in Congress but with the issue still hanging fire, it is the turn of ACA’s opponents — including Corker, Alexander, and Kustoff — to put themselves on the line and take their chances in free and open public assemblies. We earnestly hope that current efforts by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to ram through a hastily concocted version of TrumpCare will continue to fail, giving our elected officials a chance to do so in the forthcoming August recess.

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Letter From The Editor Opinion

On the Record

Last week, the Flyer‘s Toby Sells reported that the Gannett Corporation, which owns the Commercial Appeal, was refusing to pay severance to 23 former employees the company had laid off in April.

Memphis Newspaper Guild president Daniel Connolly said current employees had hung signs around the newspaper’s offices that read, “Shame on Gannett — Pay the Severance.” Connolly added that the Guild had filed a union grievance and federal complaints with the National Labor Relations Board.

Let’s forget for a moment that it’s likely, given the Trump administration’s track record on such matters, that the National Labor Relations Board offices are completely empty and that the agency’s head is a former coal mining CEO. The fact is, Gannett holds all the cards and will do exactly as it pleases with its money and its dwindling number of human resources.

On Monday, Gannett announced that it would sell the CA‘s iconic headquarters building at 495 Union and seek smaller office space elsewhere (in Memphis, theoretically). That will take care of those pesky signs, at least.

My theory is that the editorial staff will meet at Cafe Eclectic at 8:30 each morning, then go work from home. I mean, how hard is it to put out an 18-page daily paper with six local stories, anyway? Just kidding. Sort of. It is, however, becoming increasingly clear that Gannett sees the CA‘s future as digital, and the paper product is suffering because of it.

Whether in print or digital, we need great Memphis journalists. And we need for them to be treated fairly, not like replaceable factory widgets. In fact, we need journalists, now more than ever.

Just look at what’s happening in Washington, D.C. The Senate outlawed television journalists from interviewing Senators outside the Senate chambers last week. There is no reason for this, unless it’s to make it easier to keep the American people in the dark. Or unless you believe South Carolina Senator Tim Scott’s explanation that television cameras could catch the PIN numbers of senators at the Senate ATMs. (That’s actually true. Scott’s PIN is 4267. Go try it.)

It’s all so absurd.

Even Tennessee Senator Bob Corker acknowledged that the optics weren’t great: “I understand, in tandem, that it’s maybe not so good” to restrict press access while health care is drafted privately. Ya think, Senator? What a profile in courage.

Meanwhile, as Republicans were behind closed doors creating a bill that will reportedly take away health care for 23 million Americans, greatly restrict and reduce Medicare and Medicaid benefits, put lifetime caps on insurance company pay-outs, and provide huge tax breaks for the rich, the White House began denying reporters the ability to use cameras or recording devices in certain press conferences.

Listen, folks, when our government officials start restricting the press, it’s for a reason: They don’t want you to know what they’re doing. They want to have deniability. If interviews and press conferences aren’t recorded, it’s much easier to claim you were misquoted by the Fake Media™. It’s much easier to claim, as Attorney Jeff Sessions did approximately 6,724 times in his Senate testimony last week: “I do not recall …” The reason he didn’t flatly state, “I didn’t do that …” is that he knows there may be recorded evidence that will counter his conveniently faulty memory.

There’s a reason journalists want to put people “on the record.” It’s not just a phrase. It’s one of the key Constitutional safeguards of our way of life. The first sentence in the First Amendment says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.”

There’s a reason it’s the first.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Echoes of Discord

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

As partisan disagreements on pending legislative measures continued to dominate the Washington political scene, there were distinct local echoes.

Even as Democrats in Congress were trying to force open discussion of the Senate’s pending version of an Obamacare repeal-and-replace bill, now being prepared in private by an ad hoc group of Republican Senators, the party faithful across the state held press conferences last Friday protesting the GOP’s close-to-the-vest strategy.

In Memphis, the protest, led by London Lamar, president of the Tennessee Young Democrats and including state Representative Antonio Parkinson, was held in front of the Cliff Davis Federal Building downtown. The group’s call for open discussion of health-care legislation was directed not only at congressional Republicans but at Tennessee Senators Bob Corker and Lamar Alexander and U.S. Rep. David Kustoff specifically.

Though the matter of the federal government’s current direct oversight of mandated improvements in the procedures of Shelby County’s Juvenile Court was not, per se, a partisan issue, local attitudes toward it have tended to cleave along party lines.

Such, at least, was the appearance of things after news accounts surfaced over the weekend detailing recent efforts by three county officials seeking an end to federal oversight of Shelby County Juvenile Court, the result of a 2012 Memorandum of Understanding between the county and the Department of Justice.

The officials — county Mayor Mark Luttrell, Sheriff Bill Oldham, and Juvenile Court Judge Dan Michael — were all elected under the Republican electoral banner. 

The three officials discussed the matter of ending the federal oversight with Attorney General Jeff Sessions during his recent visit to Memphis. As attorney general, Sessions has taken a hard-line approach to law enforcement, focusing on what he sees as a need for more stringent enforcement and stricter penalties.

Luttrell, Oldham, and Michael subsequently elaborated on their request in a formal letter to the DOJ, which maintained that the court’s shortcomings — pinpointed in the DOJ investigation and subsequent MOU — have been rectified.

That claim drew negative reaction, much of it from local Democrats. One critic was state Representative Larry Miller, speaking as a panelist Monday morning at the National Civil Rights Museum.

Answering a question from the audience about legislative action on juvenile justice, Miller noted the county officials’ letter to the DOJ and took issue with it: “They’re saying, ‘We’ve done it. … We no longer need oversight.'” Disagreeing, Miller said, “We’re not there yet. The system is based on incarceration of young black men.”

A more reserved response came from former county Commissioner Sidney Chism, now an employee of the Sheriff’s Department and a declared candidate in next year’s race for county mayor. Said Chism, evidently speaking on behalf of Sheriff Oldham: “He has taken the goals seriously and has worked hard to achieve them, and I think he believes they have been achieved.”

Two legislators who were on Monday’s panel at the NCRM — state representatives Joe Towns and John DeBerry — commented afterward that the MOU should remain in effect but acknowledged, like Chism, that Luttrell, Michael, and Oldham seemed to have made good-faith efforts to raise the standards in effect at Juvenile Court.

But another nay vote came from 9th District Congressman Steve Cohen, who noted in a prepared statement that he had supported the original intervention by the Justice Department and said, “While progress has been made since 2012, there are still reports of race playing a factor in court hearings and reports of the juvenile detention facilities becoming more dangerous.” 

As of Tuesday, Sessions had not formally responded to the officials’ request.

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Fly On The Wall Blog Opinion

Corker Describes Trump as a “Wrecking Ball”

Yes, “Wrecking ball.” That’s the expression Tennessee Senator Bob Corker used to describe President Donald Trump, in a recent interview for Politico. Corker’s intention was to describe the flailing President as a powerful leader wrestling with destructive foreign policy urges. He didn’t mean to make us all imagine what Trump might look like naked in a Miley Cyrus video.

Thanks, Bob. 

If that wasn’t enough, Corker also wants to ‘massage’ Trump’s ‘nuggets.’ No, he actually said that.

Categories
Editorial Opinion

Corker and Alexander: Stumbling Toward Leadership?

So what have we here? In this space previously, we have lamented the evasions and relative silences from our state’s two senators — Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker — regarding the out-of-control governmental efforts of billionaire ex-builder, President Donald Trump, who seems to be going about the business of running the country as if it were some sort of Lego project that he can’t find all the pieces to and can’t be bothered to look for.

Now it seems that both Alexander and Corker have, in fact, begun, however tentatively, to make remonstrations signaling at least a bit of discontent with the antics of The Donald. On the score of Trump’s ill-advised executive order abruptly banning from these shores the populations of seven predominantly Muslim countries, Alexander had this to say, finally: “This vetting proposal itself needed more vetting. More scrutiny of those traveling from war-torn countries to the United States is wise. But this broad and confusing order seems to ban legal, permanent residents with ‘green cards’ and might turn away Iraqis, for example, who were translators and helped save lives of American troops and who could be killed if they stay in Iraq. And while not explicitly a religious test, it comes close to one, which is inconsistent with our American character.”

All very sensible, even if filtered by an excess of caution that is all too typical of Alexander. His statement was followed forthwith by one from home-state Senate colleague Corker: “We all share a desire to protect the American people, but this executive order has been poorly implemented, especially with respect to green card holders. The administration should immediately make appropriate revisions, and it is my hope that, following a thorough review and implementation of security enhancements, that many of these programs will be improved and reinstated.”

This statement too, is much tempered by a wish to be diplomatic toward someone who is, after all, not only a newly installed president but the titular leader of the Republican Party, to which both senators are duty-bound to show homage.

Previously, Corker and Alexander had each, however back-handedly, expressed reservations about the rush by Trump and, for that matter, several members of the congressional Republican leadership to eviscerate and hastily abandon the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) before a substitute could be concocted. The GOP continues to search for a plan that would at least simulate the advantages offered to the uninsured and under-insured populations by the ACA. Ultimately, though, each toed the party line.

Now, perhaps, they’re a tad footsore from such exertions. It may even be that Senators Alexander and Corker are ready to join the likes of Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Marco Rubio in a readiness to talk truth to power, even if that power happens to bear the same party label as themselves.

Something might be lost in the process, but something more is to be gained. In this case, it might be some measure of public safety for the rest of us, and for Alexander and Corker themselves, a claim to real leadership.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Shelby County Politics Wrap Up

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

At press time on Tuesday, U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) was scheduled to make one more effort, via a unanimous-consent request on the floor of the Senate, to get a vote on the confirmation of Ed Stanton III of Memphis as U.S. District Judge. 

Stanton, now serving as U.S. Attorney for Tennessee’s Western District, was nominated by President Obama in May 2015 to succeed Judge Samuel H. “Hardy” Mays.

Sponsored by 9th District Congressman Steve Cohen of Memphis, a Democrat, and heartily endorsed by Tennessee’s two Republican Senators, Bob Corker and Lamar Alexander, Stanton was expected to be a shoo-in for Senate confirmation long ago, but the same partisan gridlock that has prevented Senate action on Obama’s Supreme Court nomination of Merrick Garland has held up action on Stanton and other judicial nominees.

• The two major political parties have both now established local headquarters for the stretch drive of the presidential race. 

The Republicans went first, opening up a combination HQ for 8th District congressional nominee David Kustoff and the coordinated GOP campaign at 1755 Kirby Parkway on August 31st. The Democrats will open theirs, at 2600 Poplar, with an open house this Saturday. 

At the GOP headquarters opening, Kustoff spoke first, then Shelby County Commissioner Terry Roland, as West Tennessee chairman for Donald Trump. Next up was Lee Mills, interim Shelby GOP chair (he replaced Mary Wagner, who had been nominated for a judgeship). He began recognizing Republican gentry in the room.

When Mills got to David Lenoir, the Shelby trustee who’s certain to oppose Roland for county mayor in 2018, he fumbled with Lenoir’s job title, then somewhat apologetically said, “David, I always want to call you tax collector.” Roland then shouted out delightedly, “I do, too!”

• Given the overwhelmingly Republican nature of voting in the 8th District in recent years, Kustoff’s chances of prevailing are better than good, but for the record, Rickey Hopson of Somerville is the Democratic nominee. Hopson is making the rounds, having spoken at last month’s meeting of the Germantown Democratic Club, one of several local Democratic clubs taking up the slack for the Shelby County Democratic Party, decertified by state Democratic chair Mary Mancini several weeks ago.

Another Democratic underdog challenging the odds is Dwayne Thompson, the party’s candidate for the state House District 96 seat (Cordova, Germantown) now held by the GOP’s Steve McManus. A fund-raiser is scheduled for Thompson next Wednesday, September 28th, at Coletta’s Restaurant on Highway 64.

Memphis lawyer John Ryder, who currently serves as RNC general counsel and who supervised both parties’ rules changes and the RNC’s redistricting strategy after the census of 2010, has been named Republican Lawyer of the Year by the Republican National Lawyers Association and will be honored at a Washington banquet of the RNLA at the Capitol Hill Club in Washington on Tuesday, September 27th. “Special guests” will include Senator Corker and RNC chairman Reince Priebus.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Haslam, Corker, and Trump

The news out of Nashville last week was mostly about Governor Bill Haslam’s unique “leadership” style, in which he furrows his brow and expresses concern about the validity or constitutionality of the cockamamie bills that the legislature sends to his desk, then allows them to pass without his signature. He’s really more of a hall monitor than a governor, at this point. In fact, if Draymond Green kicked Haslam in the groin, odds are good that the governor wouldn’t even notice.

I am, however, hearing from informed sources that Haslam will probably sign into law this week a bill making “the waffle” the official state pastry. Unless someone objects, of course.

In other state news, Senator Bob Corker met with presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump in Trump Tower to discuss foreign relations or … something. Speculation was that Corker was being vetted as a possible vice presidential candidate, though Corker downplayed that possibility after the meeting. As well he should, if he has any sense at all.

A Trump-Corker ticket would be similar to the John McCain-Sarah Palin ticket of 2008: a respected senator paired with a lunatic, only this time the lunatic will be at the top of the ticket. McCain’s reputation was permanently damaged by his association with Caribou Barbie. He went from being perceived as a relatively reasonable and honorable man to someone who sold his integrity to attract the Tea Party fringe — someone who was willing to put a mentally unstable moron a heartbeat away from the presidency for political expediency. Now, McCain will be hard-pressed to retain his Senate seat, if the latest polling from Arizona is to be believed.

Corker is probably savvy enough to realize that it’s one thing to voice pro forma support for the GOP ticket in the name of party unity, but quite another to become one of the two primary party standard-bearers with a nominee as volatile and flawed as Trump.

Whoever signs on to lift hands with The Donald at the convention will be indelibly linked to what will no doubt become the sleaziest, ugliest, and most ignorant presidential campaign in modern U.S. history. The person who agrees to be Trump’s running mate must commit to supporting whatever impulsive and contradictory nonsense comes out of Trump’s mouth — or appears on his Twitter account.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie may be the leading candidate, having already sold his soul a few weeks back. This week, Trump repaid his puffy sidekick by joking that they would begin denying him tacos. Others on the Trump short bus include Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter, and Ben Carson. Vice President Gingrich, anyone?

Trump did gain the endorsement of the National Rifle Association this week, so he’s got that going for him. In announcing his organization’s support for Trump, NRA president Wayne LaPierre warned that, if elected, Hillary Clinton would abolish the Second Amendment and take away everybody’s guns. Which is what he said about President Obama in 2008 and 2012. Obama, of course, being the cagey trickster he is, has saved this part of his agenda for the very end of his presidency. (In case you hadn’t heard, the Second Amendment will be officially abolished by executive order on June 1st, and all guns must be turned in to the FBI by June 15th.)

Hillary must be so ticked.