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This is SO unconstitutional it will never get passed, right?

“If a blogger posts to a blog about an elected state officer and receives, or will receive, compensation for that post, the blogger must register” with the appropriate office within five days of the post, the legislation says.

As NBC News’ report added, the measure defines “elected state officer” as “the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, a Cabinet officer, or any member of the Legislature.”

Those who failed to comply could face thousands of dollars in state penalties.

If this approach sounds at all familiar, it might be because Vladimir Putin signed a similar measure — known as the “bloggers law” — in 2014, requiring online writers to register with the Russian government.

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Isn't it always the way? The most fervent anti-gay pols turn out to have a secret!

Tennessee is currently leading the nation in anti-LGBTQ hate, with 26 anti-lgbtq bills moving through the legislature. Last week Governor Lee made national news for quickly signing a cruel trans youth health care ban, and the nation’s first drag show felony bill, which threatens to lock up drag performers.

What made the bill even more absurd was the revelation that Governor Lee himself had dressed in drag, on a school campus, in front of minors, back in 1977...

Well hang onto your hats, folks, because it turns out Lee isn’t the only huge hypocrite at the highest levels of Tennessee’s government.

Enter Lt. Gov. Randy McNally, who it turns out has been openly leaving heart emojis and other encouraging comments under very racy pics on the instagram page of a young gay male aspiring performer named Franklyn McClur

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The police said they were conducting a drug-related investigation on a neighbor, and they wanted videos of “suspicious activity” between 5 and 7 p.m. one night in October. Larkin cooperated, and sent clips of a car that drove by his Ring camera more than 12 times in that time frame.

He thought that was all the police would need. Instead, it was just the beginning.

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Walgreens is refusing to dispense abortion pills in 10 states where abortion remains legal, and has made large donations to politicians and committees that oppose abortion rights.

Yesterday, Popular Information exposed how Walgreens supports the anti-abortion movement. The company is refusing to dispense abortion pills in 10 states where abortion remains legal, and has made large donations to politicians and committees that oppose abortion rights.

Our Twitter thread on Walgreens quickly went viral and Walgreens became the #2 trending topic on Twitter. Walgreens’ Twitter account became so inundated with customer complaints that Walgreens blocked the ability of people to reply to its tweets.

A few hours later, California Governor Gavin Newsom announced that his state would stop doing business with Walgreens. “We will not pursue business with companies that cave to right wing bullies pushing their extremist agenda or companies that put politics above the health of women and girls,” a spokesperson said.

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“Something happened that I’ve never experienced in my time down here, which was somebody on a committee testifying tried to intimidate our members by telling them they’re gonna score them a vote,” he said. “You can have those conversations in your room, you can have those conversations in email. But to do it in the committee — to try to intimidate this committee to go a certain direction — is uncalled for.”

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KnoxViews has the run down

Tennessee Right to Life continues to oppose legislation that would stop the “criminalization” of doctors who perform abortions to save the life of a woman despite a number of proposed changes to the bill.

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The state of healthcare in Tennessee: not good

The legislature’s continued failure to take Medicaid expansion funds and interference in physicians’ performance are corrosive to healthcare professionals

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Rooftop Solar doesn't need the super vulnerable power grid:

Hackers tied to Russia got dangerously close to knocking out a big chunk of the U.S. power grid last year — and the malware they used is still out there.

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This is alarming!

The religious arm Gov. Bill Lee's administration — the Governor's Office of Faith-Based Initiatives — is likely to soon get taxpayer funding, if a GOP-sponsored bill approving the measure passes.

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From two large prospective U.S. cohorts, 116,221 adults self-reported leisure-time physical activity—defined as exercise that is not done at work—through a validated questionnaire. The questionnaire was repeated up to 15 times over the course of 30 years.

The study found that those who worked out two to four times beyond the minimum physical activity recommendations had a lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease. Those who worked out two to four times above the moderate physical activity recommendations—about 300 to 599 minutes each week—saw the most benefit. Participants had a 26% to 31% lower all-cause mortality while 28% to 38% had lower cardiovascular mortality. On top of that, 25% to 27% experienced lower non-cardiovascular mortality.

Additionally, adults who worked out two to four times more than the vigorous physical activity recommendations—about 150 to 299 minutes per week—were found to have 21% to 23% lower all-cause mortality, according to the study. They were also reported to have 27% to 33% lower cardiovascular mortality and 19% lower non-cardiovascular mortality.

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The economic plight of Kroger workers

Kroger, a multi-billion dollar company, is allegedly shortchanging its workers — a low-wage and vulnerable population. A 2022 study found that about 75% of surveyed Kroger workers across three regions said they were food insecure, and about 14% were homeless or had been homeless in the previous year.

One worker, for instance, told Popular Information that they were evicted after not receiving a paycheck for several weeks. Another employee shared that they are loaning out some of their own money to help new hires who are missing paychecks and do not have enough money for gas. Many more cited the stress of wondering if, and when, their check will appear. Others are “forced to work second jobs, or take on high-interest and risky payday loans in order to meet daily expenses.”

Kroger, in contrast, recorded $113 billion in sales in the first three quarters of 2022, nearly an 8% increase from the same period last year. In 2021, CEO McMullen received $18.2 million in compensation — 679 times more than the median Kroger employee. The company is also gearing up to acquire Albertsons — a merger that would give the company “control of nearly one-fifth of the US grocery market.” Critics say that this move could result in price hikes, more food deserts, and mass layoffs.

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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.

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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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