She’s running in Steve Cohen’s district, and for some reason* she’s very, very annoyed that Rep. Cohen is going around accusing Tea Partiers of being racist, would-be Klansmen.
Charlotte’s site is here: please check it out.
Moe Lane Continue reading Meet Charlotte Bergmann (R CAND, TN-09).
UPDATE: Hotline has more.
DOOM.
After more than a quarter-century of public service to his home state of Tennessee, U.S. Rep. Bart Gordon announced his plans to retire from Congress when his current term ends in 2010.
“I feel honored that the people of Middle Tennessee have allowed me to serve them for the past 25 years,” said Gordon. “Every decision I have made in Congress has been with their best interests in mind. I hope the people here at home feel that I have served them as well as their good advice and views have served me.
“When I was elected, I was the youngest member of the Tennessee congressional delegation; now, I’m one of the oldest. In fact, I have members of my staff who weren’t even born when I took office. That tells me it’s time for a new chapter.”
One where he isn’t making ski junkets on the taxpayer’s dime, no doubt.
(Via Instapundit.)
Moe Lane
PS: Dale Dave Evans [Oops! – ML] is running for this seat. There may be others.
Wait, what?
(via @BrianFaughnan) Contra the New York Times, there are no racial overtones to this challenge. It’s pretty much the melody line:
The black candidate, former Mayor Willie W. Herenton of Memphis, has argued that Tennessee needs a black voice in its currently all-white delegation. He is running a blistering campaign against Representative Steve Cohen, a fellow Democrat with a precarious hold on the majority black district.
“To know Steve Cohen is to know that he really does not think very much of African-Americans,” Mr. Herenton said in a recent radio interview on KWAM. “He’s played the black community well.”
[snip]
“This seat was set aside for people who look like me,” said Mr. Herenton’s campaign manager, Sidney Chism, a black county commissioner. “It wasn’t set aside for a Jew or a Christian. It was set aside so that blacks could have representation.”
TN-09 being a D+23 district, the Democratic primary race is going to be of special interest – and this is… well. It’s not so much the sentiments as it is the utterly unselfconscious way that they’re being presented. Remember that full and frank discussion of race we were promised? – because I suspect that this is not what people had in mind.
Moe Lane
PS: And one last thing: Steve Cohen did not “consider joining” the Congressional Black Caucus; he was told that he couldn’t join because of his skin color. They’re doing the same thing to Rep. Joseph Cao (R, LA-02), too – although I suspect that changing the ‘R’ to ‘D’ there might have caused them to reconsider.
Crossposted to RedState.
To quote Cool Hand Luke
‘Global warming is baloney’ signs put the heat on Burger King
A row between the fast food giant Burger King and one of its major franchise owners has erupted over roadside signs proclaiming “global warming is baloney”.
The franchisee, a Memphis-based company called the Mirabile Investment Corporation (MIC) that owns more than 40 Burger Kings across Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi, has described Burger King as acting “kinda like cockroaches” over the controversy. MIC says it does not believe Burger King has the authority to make it take the signs down.
The Guardian shoved in as many cooking allusions as it could – which they shouldn’t have, but it’s forgivable – but the, ah, meat of the matter is that the Burger King spokesman says that they have the right to shut down this kind of signage on the part of its franchisees, and that the franchisee has agreed to take down the signs; while the franchise spokesman says that Burger King doesn’t have the right to shut down these signs, and that Burger King can… deal with it. The word ‘cockroaches’ was used in the latter’s response, as was an explicitly cheerful willingness to drag it out in court for the next ten years.
[[John]] McNelis added: “The [restaurant] management team can put the message up there if they want to. It is private property and here in the US we do have some rights. Notwithstanding a franchise agreement, I could load a Brinks vehicle with [rights] I’ve got so many of them. By the time the Burger King lawyers work out how to make that stick we’d be in the year 2020.”
Which is why I figure that somebody’s getting fired. You usually don’t have people in marketing making statements that are that direct unless they’re either sure that they won’t get fired, or that they’re sure that they will…
Moe Lane
Crossposted to RedState.
If you might remember, back in February it was reported that Bart Gordon (D, TN-06) went to Europe on taxpayer money to… essentially, ski. He wasn’t on any relevant committee that would justify his presence in that particular junket, but he is a twelve-term Democrat whose party overwhelmingly controls Congress right now, which apparently is justification enough. Now Dave Evans, Gordon’s most likely Republican challenger in the general election, has come out with an estimate that Gordon’s travel costs were approximately $7,250; he’s calling for the Congressman to give that money back, fully disclose how much was spent by Gordon and his family on the trip, explain why he didn’t disclose earlier, and explain why the Congressman was on this junket in the first place.
What makes this potentially damaging is that Bart Gordon is a Blue Dog Democrat; their primary distinguishing feature is supposed to be fiscal conservatism. While this has been overshadowed by their willingness to vote for things like the miscalled “stimulus” bills – which Gordon voted for – individual members of that caucus still hope to run on individual records of financial probity. Which is quite probably why Gordon has been notably uncommunicative about his reasons for going to Europe at taxpayer expense. If there was anything resembling a valid reason for it, he would have said so by now. Early days yet for the race, but that’s sometimes necessary when a long-time incumbent is being challenged.
Dave Evans’ site is here; his Twitter is @DaveEvans_TN6; and here is an account of his participation in the Nashville Tea Party. You can check out his priorities here – the man’s a retired Army Reserve general – and then there’s this picture, which should serve as a pretty good shorthand for many readers here. Check him out, and here’s his donation page.
Moe Lane
Crossposted to RedState.
Costs five bucks: in exchange, you get a tea bag sent to Washington on April 10th with your 200 character message attached, a bumper sticker, and a buck sent to one of several charities. It’s all being run out of the house of a Tennessee mom, and I personally think that it’s a clever idea.
Via Little Miss Attila and No Silence Here.
Crossposted to RedState.
Apparently, he’s going to be part of quite the throng. Via Red County and Dave Evans for Congress comes this WaPo report:
Hurry, hurry, hurry. Congress will begin its 2009 travel season in earnest this weekend with two spectacular codels — trips for House congressional delegations — that are not to be missed.
On Saturday, Rep. John Tanner (D-Tenn.), chairman of the House delegation to NATO’s parliamentary assembly, and his wife will lead a delegation of 13 lawmakers — plus 10 spouses — on a fine nine-day jaunt starting at NATO’s headquarters in Brussels.
[snip]
The huge number of members, spouses and staffers, plus military escorts, will require taking one of the bigger military jets, but we’re told these trips are an important use of taxpayer money.
No, of course he has no obvious legislative reason to go. As Dave Evans further notes: Continue reading Rep Bart Gordon (D, TN-06) junketing to Europe for no real reason?
(H/T: Technomancy for Fun and Profit)
Quick background: last year, USMC Sgt. Michael Ferschke was killed in Iraq while conducting door-to-door searches. He left behind his Okinawan-born, pregnant wife Hotaru Ferschke, who he had married a month before by proxy; and, of course, there were problems with her visa. Wizbang wrote about it here and here; Senator Lamar Alexander‘s (R-TN) office has been working on getting this fixed from the start, of course (I understand that some other (Tennessee?) lawmakers also assisted, but I couldn’t find details); between them and the USMC, they’ve made arrangements for Mrs. Ferschke to enter the country on a temporary visa, now that her son is born (more here).
Continue reading Happy not-quite-ending for war hero’s widow and son.
