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News News Blog

U.S. House Members Want Answers on TVA

Some U.S. House members criticized the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) last week, concerned that ratepayers pay too much and that the agency is not working hard enough on renewable energy. 

Four ranking Democrats in the House Energy and Commerce Committee issued a letter to TVA president and CEO Jeff Lyash last week. It said TVA’s business practices “appeared inconsistent” with the federal agency’s law-bound commitment to provide low-cost power. The lawmakers were also concerned “that TVA is interfering with the deployment of renewable and distributed energy resources.” 

As for energy prices, the committee members worried they were too high and impacted low-income households the most. For proof, the members pointed to a study from the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE). It found that half of low-income Memphians pay more than 13.2 percent of their annual incomes on energy and more than a quarter of them pay more than 25 percent on energy each year. The study noted, however, that low-income Tennesseans pay some “of the lowest energy rates in the United States” and blamed high bills on homes that are not energy efficient.

TVA said its rates are now lower than 80 percent of other U.S. utilities; industrial rates are lower than 95 percent of them. The agency has kept rates flat for 10 years, TVA said in a statement, even as fuel costs rose in that time. 

“Even with TVA’s low energy costs, we recognize the challenge of high-energy burden in our region,” TVA said in a statement. “TVA is in partnership with 153 local power companies and other organizations to help address the root-causes of this issue, including the need to weatherize and implement energy efficiency measures in buildings and housing.”       

In 2018, TVA lowered power rates 50 cents per kilowatt hour and charged local utilities (like Memphis Light, Gas & Water [MLGW]) a fixed fee to access the TVA electricity grid, the letter said. Locals, like MLGW, passed those fixed costs on to ratepayers who could, then, pay even more, sometimes even if they used less energy. The House committee worried the move would deter energy efficiency deployments, and maintain TVA’s electricity demand and revenues.

House members said, too, that TVA may be stalling the implementation of renewable energy initiatives by residential and industrial customers. For proof, the letter pointed to internal TVA documents that said its grid access fee would “curtail the deployment of solar projects by 40 percent.”

Finally, the group called TVA’s plan to decarbonize by 2050 “unambitious” and not in line with President Joe Biden’s goal of carbon-free energy by 2035. But TVA said it is making strides, embracing “emerging technologies, from carbon capture to advanced nuclear, while supporting national clean energy initiatives, such as a robust electric vehicle charging infrastructure.”

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Politics Beat Blog

Brian Kelsey, Accomplice Indicted in Campaign Finance Fraud

State Senator Brian Kelsey (R-Germantown) has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Nashville for violating multiple campaign finance laws in his unsuccessful 2016 campaign for an open U.S. Congress seat. The five-count indictment announced Monday charges Kelsey and Nashville social club owner Joshua Smith with violating multiple campaign finance laws in a conspiracy to benefit Kelsey’s campaign.

According to the indictment, beginning in February 2016 and continuing through mid-October 2016, Kelsey and Smith conspired with others to violate federal campaign finance laws to secretly and unlawfully funnel “soft money” (funds not subject to the limitations, prohibitions, and reporting requirements of the Federal Election Campaign Act [FECA]) from Kelsey’s Tennessee State Senate campaign committee to his authorized federal campaign committee. 

Kelsey and others also caused a national political organization to make illegal, excessive contributions to Kelsey’s federal campaign committee by secretly coordinating with the organization on advertisements supporting Kelsey’s federal candidacy and to cause false reports of contributions and expenditures to be filed with the Federal Election Commission. 

The indictment alleges that Kelsey, Smith, and other unindicted co-conspirators orchestrated the concealed movement of $91,000 to a national political organization for the purpose of funding advertisements that urged voters to support Kelsey in the August 2016 primary election, and that the conspirators caused the political organization to make $80,000 worth of contributions to Kelsey’s federal campaign committee in the form of coordinated expenditures.

If convicted, Kelsey and Smith face up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each count. A summons has been issued by the Court and the duo are directed to surrender to U.S. Marshals in the Middle District of Tennessee on or before November 5, 2021, at 10 a.m. and both will make an initial appearance before a U.S. Magistrate Judge.

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News News Blog

House Blocks Amendment To Bar U.S. Military Recruiting on Video Game Sites

An amendment proposed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) that would bar the U.S. military from using the popular video game streaming site, Twitch, was struck down in the House last week.

Launched in 2011, Twitch is now one of the largest video game streaming sites in the world, with more than 15 million average users per day. Users tune in to watch personalities play games as well as interact with them through the chat feature. `

The proposed amendment to the House Appropriations Bill would have prohibited the use of funds for military recruitment via Twitch and other esports activities. The amendment was introduced in response to the aggressive recruiting that had been used by all branches of the military on the site, with the U.S Army being the most prevalent.

The U.S military branches had been cited on multiple occasions for their predatory recruitment tactics that seemed to target children visiting the site. In early July, the U.S Army was given a warning by the site for using fake giveaway links that directed people to recruitment pages.

Piyush Kumar, founder of Memphis-based esports team, Glaive Esports, was critical of the practice.

“I think that U.S Army recruitment is important, but there is a reasonable place for it,” said Kumar. “There is a section on Twitch called “Just Chatting,” where content creators can directly speak to viewers about a range of topics, and many of them can be educational. I see no harm in the military giving educational presentations on the platform about joining the military, but baiting viewers with false giveaways is not the right way to go about it.”

The tactic was also condemned by Ocasio-Cortez.

Though the draft of the amendment was initially approved, Ocasio-Cortez relayed frustration at her colleagues’ lack of knowledge regarding the amendment via Twitter following the vote.

House Blocks Amendment To Bar U.S. Military Recruiting on Video Game Sites (2)

Both the U.S Army and the U.S Navy have denied wrongdoing and have stated that they will continue to stream on Twitch.

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News News Blog

Where Each Tennessee Congressman Stands on Cannabis

As cannabis legalization becomes more common throughout the country, the majority of Tennessee legislators haven’t made any moves toward legalizing the plant here. Rep. Steve Cohen, by far, has shown the most support for cannabis legalization.

Tennessee is one of 20 states with no broad laws legalizing marijuana, while 30 states and the District of Columbia have legalized the herb for either medical or recreational use.

The information in the charts below comes from the Cannabis Voter Project, which aims to “educate Americans about how voting can impact cannabis policy.” The project was launched by HeadCount, a non-partisan organization working to increase voter engagement.

Here are where the Senators stand.


And here are where the Representatives stand.

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Opinion The Last Word

The Rant

A revealing survey was released last week by the Public Policy Polling group comparing the popularity of Congress to various noxious irritants that clutter our world. Among other things, respondents preferred used-car salesmen and the NFL replacement refs to the 112th Congress.

Marsha Blackburn

Congress has been polling at a history-making 9 percent approval rating by the American people — the lowest approval number since polling was invented. I can only imagine those nine people out of a hundred who think the legislative branch is doing a good job are either congressional spouses and dependents or the brain-dead remnants of Glenn Beck’s following. 

I can’t think of a Congress that has accomplished less and is more deserving of public scorn than this one, unless you include the Congress of 1856, when Charles Sumner was brutally caned on the Senate floor, which — on second thought — would probably garner more public approval than anything this batch has done. In fact, I’m certain there are many who feel a little caning might have helped during the previous cantankerous session. Instead, the current crop of congressional Republicans have been administering a metaphorical caning to the American people since 2008, and there are blinking neon signs of public revulsion — not the least of which was the total rejection of the GOP platform in the November election. Just when voters were hoping for a return to a semblance of sanity, the dictatorial, ideological, Republican jihadists didn’t seem to get the message, and they continue their crusade against the will of the people. No wonder people hate Congress.

Of the 26 different categories the PPP used in polling, Congress was found to be less preferable than head lice, cockroaches, and Nickelback, but to their eternal credit, they scored higher than gonorrhea, John Edwards, or the Kardashians. I sense a prejudice against the Kardashians, however, for overexposure. At least they get things done, even if it’s elective surgeries or the bunny-like multiplication of their TV franchises. Just look how fast it took Kim to get pregnant by Kanye West and spin it into a new reality show on Bravo. Elvis would have called that “takin’ care of business.” The Kardashians do more in a day than the legislative branch does in a month. What I found interesting, as a patient of intrusive gastric probery, was that Congress was deemed even less popular than a colonoscopy. I was puzzled by the comparison for a minute, and then it made perfect sense. When you have a colonoscopy, at least they knock you out before shoving something up your ass. An earlier poll revealed the Republicans weren’t accepting the election results easily; 49 percent of GOP voters agreed with the statement that ACORN stole the election for Obama.

In a move to counter the criticism that they are incapable of accomplishing anything, the House of Representatives passed a bill last week that bans the word “lunatic” in all federal legislation. Michele Bachmann had the honor of introducing the first bill of the 113th Congress: to “repeal Obamacare in its entirety,” the 34th such attempt. Speaker John Boehner rewarded the zany representative by reassigning her to the Intelligence Committee. Now, Bachmann will be privy to the nation’s most sensitive and classified military information. Feel better?

Tennessee representative Marsha Blackburn followed Bachmann the next day with a bill to defund Planned Parenthood, calling the organization “Big Abortion.” Not to be outdone, the very next day, another self-loathing female Tennessee congressperson, Diane Black of Gallatin, introduced the exact same bill with the same sponsors. Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards said, “They apparently learned nothing from the results of the last election, when Americans said overwhelmingly that they do not want politicians dictating women’s access to health care.” In an interesting aside, before running for office, Diane Black was a nurse.

In a contemporaneous account, a former acquaintance claimed Blackburn showed up in Nashville in the early 1980s, newly graduated from Mississippi State, claiming to be an “image consultant.” She and her husband started a business, with Blackburn leading seminars for teaching aspiring corporate women how to dress for success. Political observers have called Blackburn a “rising star” in the Republican Party. Meanwhile, a local political action committee has been formed with the goal of bouncing the representative from Brentwood out of Congress. In addition to her opposition to Planned Parenthood, Blackburn recently claimed on CNN that gun control is not the answer to mass shootings, because “hammers, hatchets, cars, and video games” also contribute to the murder rate in the United States. Blackburn may dress smartly, but she votes like an idiot. And my confidential source also said that she lies about her age.

Former GOP representative, now-MSNBC host Joe Scarborough has said that he is tired of the Republicans being the “stupid party.” “Morning Joe” claims that the Tea Party wing is destroying the party’s chances of competing in national elections because of its extremist views. But as the Tea Party declines in public favor, its voices only grow louder.

Latest to join the fray is Georgia representative Phil Gingrey. Just when you thought comments about “legitimate rape” were gone from the national discussion, here comes Gingrey claiming that Senate candidate Todd Akin’s statements were “partially true.” Discussing the subject of rape with the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, Gingrey stated that “a scared-to-death 15-year-old who gets impregnated by her boyfriend” might tell her parents she’s been raped, as opposed to a “legitimate rape,” which increases a womans’ adrenaline and may cause an interference in ovulation. However, if a woman has already had her period, Gingrey explained, “then the horse is out of the barn, so to speak.”

Can you guess what Gingrey did before becoming a congressman? He’s an OB-GYN. His Georgia colleague in the House, Representative Paul Broun, recently stated that “evolution, embryology, the Big Bang Theory are all lies straight from the pit of hell.” Like Gingrey, Broun is a physician. I didn’t know Vatterott College had a med school.

Randy Haspel writes the “Born-Again Hippies” blog, where a version of this column first appeared.

Categories
Editorial Opinion

Disgraceful Politics

The most disturbing aspect of the current election season is the extent to which previously respected public figures have shed some of the skin with which polite society clothes the elemental. Those so inclined can read up on Kundalini yoga, which posits the stages — or “chakras” — through

which human nature rises from serpentine origins all the way to spiritual ecstasy.

Putting that another way, there’s a little bit of snake in all of us, and in case after case it slithered out during the course of the pre-election period — in one case, in particular.

Walter Bailey is a distinguished and dedicated man, and while the longtime former county commissioner may appear to some to be literal-minded and over-zealous in his assault on the vestiges of de facto segregation in the public and private spheres, he has for the most part waged his campaign honorably. Though not everyone would agree, Bailey is well within his rights to consider the late Memphis native and Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest to have been “despicable” and to opine that public honors for such a man — pre-war slave-trader, the general accused of massacre at Fort Pillow, post-war founder of the Ku Klux Klan — are “unconscionable.”

What was unquestionably despicable and unconscionable, however, was Bailey’s lending himself to a TV commercial which coupled Congressman Steve Cohen’s image with that of a sieg-heiling hooded Klansman. The congressman’s offense? Having voted some years ago, while a member of the Center City Commission, against Bailey’s proposal to change the name of Forrest Park and disinter the remains of the man buried there.

Never mind that neither Mayor Herenton nor the City Council found merit in the proposal at the time. Bailey not only held a grudge but, in serving as front man for the loathsome commercial, lent himself to the most sordid of desperation tactics on the part of the congressman’s opponent, Nikki Tinker.

About Tinker, who has seemed unable to articulate even a single recognizable campaign theme or reason for anybody to elect her to anything, not much can be said at this point — except that she has besmirched her own probity almost beyond redemption, a fact that would benefit neither her nor the district should she manage an upset win over the incumbent.

Only two members of the Congressional Black Caucus have gone on record in support of Tinker, and both of them signed on as co-sponsors to Cohen’s resolution, passed on a voice vote by the House of Representatives last week, committing that branch of the Congress to a formal apology for the institution of slavery and for the long aftermath of Jim Crow oppression. The resolution was greeted as epochal by the worldwide press.

Tinker and her supporters have tried to label Cohen’s achievement, almost unparalleled for a freshman congressman, as “opportunist.” It was surely no more so than Abraham Lincoln’s choice of an opportune time, post-Antietam, to issue the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. And in the case of Cohen (whose legislative and civic record on civil rights issues is impeccable), the element of sincerity is beyond question.

Win or lose, Cohen has already made his mark on history, while Tinker and Bailey, quite frankly, have disgraced themselves.

Categories
News

Barbour to Appoint Rep. Roger Wicker to Lott’s Senate Seat

AP – Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour on Monday announced his choice for Trent Lott’s replacement in the Senate: Rep. Roger Wicker, a conservative congressman.

Barbour said it was important to select a person with Lott’s “conservative values” and who would be able to work with Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran, also a Republican.

“I am a mainstream conservative in the mold of Trent Lott, Thad Cochran, Haley Barbour and (U.S. Rep.) Chip Pickering and I believe the vast majority of Mississipians share this philosophy,” Wicker said at a news conference. “At the same time, I hope my constituents and colleagues view me as a pragmatic problem-solver.”

Wicker will serve until a state-mandated special election is held Nov. 4. He is expected to be a candidate in that race. The winner will serve out the remainder of Lott’s term, which runs through 2012.

Wicker, 56, had been mentioned as a possible successor since Lott’s resignation earlier in December after serving one year of a six-year term.

Wicker was elected to the U.S. House in 1994 to succeed the late Rep. Jamie Whitten. He has been re-elected six times from the 1st District in north Mississippi. Wicker was resigning from the U.S. House.

Lott served 16 years in the U.S. House before moving to the Senate in 1988. Lott announced in November that he would resign before the end of the year. He resigned Dec. 19 after Congress wrapped up its work for the year.

Lott, 66, said he wants to spend more time with his family and to pursue other job opportunities, possibly teaching. He ruled out any health concerns, but said it’s time for a younger voice to represent Mississippi in the Senate.

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Editorial Opinion

Tanner’s Prescription

One of the most enduring presences on the Tennessee political scene has been 8th District congressman John Tanner of Union City, a Democrat who, since his first election to the office as a state legislator in 1988, has never been seriously tested by an opponent, Republican or Democratic.

One of the reasons is that Tanner, though a leader of the Democrats’ conservative “Blue Dog” faction, faithfully attempts to strike a balance between competing points of view as well as to propitiate the expressed will of his constituents. Better than most faced with such a task, he avoids the “on the one hand/on the other hand” mode of temporizing, though the final result of his thinking doesn’t necessarily please everybody.

Such might be the case with his answer to a question posed to him last Friday night, when Tanner, something of a foreign-policy maven, was the featured speaker at the culminating “Frontline Politics” event sponsored by the Greater Memphis Area Chamber of Commerce at the East Memphis Hilton.

Whom should we side with in the ongoing confrontation in Pakistan between the autocratic government of Pervez Musharraf and ostensible democratic reformer Benazir Bhutto, a former prime minister freshly returned from exile? Not an easy question, and Tanner, after ruminating out loud over the pros and cons of the matter, finally came down, reluctantly but decisively, on the side of the status quo. What’s at stake in the region is stability, the congressman said, and that’s especially needful in the case of Pakistan, not only a de facto ally in the so-called war on terror but a country in possession of a decent-sized nuclear arsenal.

Not everybody will be satisfied with Tanner’s conclusion, especially those who see the issue posed in Pakistan to be the simple one of tyranny versus democracy. And who, after all, can fail to be inspired by the spectacle of all those protesting lawyers in business suits who let themselves be carted off to jail by the current regime’s police?

Even so, there are good reasons to heed Tanner’s caveat, especially since one of Musharraf’s accomplishments in office, through fair means or foul, has been to repress the ever-present minions of al-Qaeda, who are well represented in Pakistan and who are thought to be providing a haven there for Osama bin Laden. How certain can we be that Bhutto, who had tendencies toward authoritarianism (and corruption) herself before being thrown out of office in 1996, would be able to keep the lid on the problem?

Beyond that, our experience in Iraq has surely taught us something about the dangers of overthrowing dictators. Saddam Hussein was no paragon, to say the least. But he was A) secular and B) strong enough to hold the festering parts of that country together against potential (now long since actualized) religious anarchy. Much the same can be said of Musharraf, and it has to be considered, as Tanner indicated, whether the cure for authoritarian regimes (which are surely to be preferred to totalitarian ones) can be worse than the illness.