Tag Archives: blog

Frank Niceley Starts Blogging

Leave a reply

State Sen. Frank Niceley has launched a blog with initial posts on topics ranging from “Rocky the squirrel” being foiled in an attempt to break into the state capitol complex (with photo) to a reminiscence on “legendary East Tennessee criminal defense attorney Ray Jenkins.”
The very first post provides a hat tip of sorts to Sen. Stacey Campfield, a fellow conservative Republican who was apparently the first state legislator to start a blog several years ago. Therein Niceley recalls a conversation with then-House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh:
“Frank, you all have to do something about Campfield,” he said obviously agitated, “he has a blog!” I replied, “what’s a blog?” Naifeh paused and responded, “I don’t know but it sounds bad.” He hurried off.
The blog is entitled “Frank Niceley said, What?” with the subhead “politics, history, humor, farming.. You’ll find it HERE

TN Legislators Encounter Protests During Turkish Trip

Leave a reply

Tennessee state legislators found themselves in the middle of Turkish protesters at one point during a 10-day tour of Turkey and Azerbaijan that ended last week, according to state Sen. Stacey Campfield, R-Knoxville.
“They were really a lot like the Occupy Wall Street crowd, or Occupy Nashville,” said Campfield, adding that he had talked with several of the protesters, who were in a peaceful mode when encountered by the Tennesseans in Istanbul.
“They had the same type of arguments” in complaints about capitalism, interrelated with what the protesters saw as unwarranted development of a city park, said Campfield, one of several legislators making the trip sponsored by the Turkish-American Chamber of Commerce of the Southeast.
On his blog, the senator posted multiple pictures and travelogue-like commentary on the trip. The pictures include shots of marching protesters and vehicles that had been battered or burned.

Continue reading →

Rep. Ragan: ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bashing Unfair, Uninformed

Leave a reply

State Rep. John Ragan says the fresh round of criticism he has faced for sponsorship of so-called “don’t say gay” bill is uninformed and unfair because he was trying to completely transform the bill so that it had “absolutely nothing to do” with homosexuality.
“It really irritates me in a major fashion,” said Ragan, R-Oak Ridge, in an interview.
An article posted on both The Daily Kos and The Huffington Post chides StudentsFirst, a national education reform organization, for declaring Ragan a Tennessee “educational reformer of the year” while he was sponsor of the “don’t say gay” bill (HB1332).
“The latest version would have forced select Tennessee school officials to notify parents of children who privately discussed their sexual orientation, essentially dictating forced ‘outing’ of kids, even against their own objections,” the article says. “Ragan’s proposed education bill is more than just ignorant and wrong, and bad policy, it’s downright dangerous and does anything but ‘put students first.’ ”

Continue reading →

Campfield’s ‘Pressure Cooker’ Joke Draws National Media Attention

Leave a reply

Sen. Stacey Campfield is drawing national media attention again, this time for a blog post joke calling for “pressure cooker control” after pressure cookers were fashioned into bombs for the Boston marathon explosions that killed three people.
The unapologetic Campfield had an interview/argument with CNN’s Piers Morgan on Thursday, saying he was “just pointing out the hypocrisy of the left” and comparing gun control as a curb to violence to “spoon control” to curb obesity.
He also got in a few digs at Morgan, such as: “When are you going to move back to England? People in Tennessee are dying to know.” (Video HERE)
And here’s an excerpt from an ABC News story, which notes the blog post had a photo of a pressure cooker with “Assault Pressure Cooker (APC)” printed below it.:
The photo had labels and arrows pointing to all of the pot’s “dangerous” features including a “muzzle break thingy that goes ‘up'” and a “tactical pistol grip.”
It’s also described as “large-capacity, can cook for hours without reloading” and the color was “evil, black.”
The blog post was titled, “Here comes Feinstein again,” an apparent dig at Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.), one of the leading proponents in the battle for gun control. The image implied that pressure cookers might be her next target.
Two pressure cookers were turned into bombs in the Boston Marathon bombing that killed three people and wounded more than 260 people.
Campfield dismisses the criticism.
“I think it’s tasteless when Obama will drag everybody he can up to Capitol Hill and try to pass gun control,” Campfield told ABCNews.com today. “I think that was classless and tasteless. I don’t hear them complaining about that too much.”
“I was showing the hypocrisy of Diane Feinstein, the gun grabbers, of their inability to realize that it is a person that does activity, not an inanimate object, be it a gun or a pressure cooker,” he said.

Campfield Unapologetic for Erroneous Blog Post in Deposition

Leave a reply

By Erik Schelzig, Associated Press
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — State Sen. Stacey Campfield has given a deposition in which he is unapologetic for posting false information about a Democratic candidate on his blog, dismissive of the possibility of paying damages for that and belittling of the technological skills of fellow lawmakers.
Campfield, a Knoxville Republican, is the defendant in a $750,000 libel lawsuit brought by Roger Byrge for falsely stating on his blog in the weeks before the 2008 general election that the Democrat had a criminal record. Byrge lost the state House race to Republican Chad Faulkner by fewer than 400 votes, 8,321 to 7,930.
Campfield, in a deposition attached to a court filing last week, said he would be unlikely to pay any damages, noting that he earns about $30,000 a year.
“Like I’ve got any money to give it even if you win,” Campfield said in the deposition taken in April 2011.
“Go right ahead,” he said. “I mean, I can show you my tax returns. If you think you’re going to get money out of me, it’s laughable.”

Continue reading →

TBI Probes Blog Criticizing Reps. Shipley, Lundbert

Leave a reply

A nearly three-month-old Internet blog posting taking Tennessee GOP state Reps. Tony Shipley and Jon Lundberg to task for passing legislation outlawing synthetic drugs and shutting down area head shops has been turned over to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation to look into, Shipley tells the Kin sport Times-News.
“I got a call this morning that someone said something was out there, looking like it was a life threat, and it was forwarded to TBI, and they do whatever it is they do,” Shipley said. “The information was sent to Nashville by county officials who saw it today.”
The blog, called ablogination.tn420.org, said of Shipley: “We’re coming for you. The businesses you sought to destroy have more money than you do and far more resolve.”
The blog, dated May 15, included a computer-altered image of the so-called “Blackbird Mailer” used by the Tennessee Republican Party in the 2008 campaign between Shipley and former state Rep. Nathan Vaughn, Northeast Tennessee’s first African-American state lawmaker. Shipley narrowly won that election.
In the TRP mailer, the heads of Vaughn, former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Barack Obama were pasted on blackbirds and described as “Part of the Big Government Flock.” In the blog, Shipley’s and Lundberg’s heads are pasted on the blackbirds and described as “Part of the Fascist Big Government Flock.”
—
See also WJHL-TV’s reporting, which includes this:
A T.B.I. spokesperson said State Senator Mae Beavers contacted the agency with concerns about the blog post.
A T.B.I. agent met with Sen. Beavers, the spokesperson said.
…Shipley told 11 Connects News that Speaker of the House Beth Harwell has directed the T.H.P. (Tennessee Highway Patrol) Office of Executive Protection to evaluate the threat and take steps necessary to protect him and his family.
Here’s a portion of the blog post.
“We’re coming for you (Shipley). The businesses you sought to destroy have more money than you do and far more resolve….You attacked our livelihood, which means you attacked our families and their well-being. I am your enemy, Tony.”
State Representative Jon Lundberg told 11 Connects’ Josh Smith he doesn’t consider the blog to represent an “imminent threat.”

Still More on Campfield and AIDS

1 Reply

So, if you’re sitting around this weekend wondering about the latest conversational developments in Sen. Stacey Campfield’s AIDS information commentary….
First, check the senator’s blog and scroll down through it a ways. Far from being cowed by caustic critics, Campfield has actively engaged them, as illustrated by posts on follow-up broadcast interviews, including videos.
A standout among them is an audio clip of a remarkable anti=Campfield diatribe that was left on his voice mail. Direct link to the audio is HERE.
Politifact Tennessee, meanwhile, has given the original Campfield comments a “pants on fire” rating in its “Truth-o-Meter.” On Saturday, it was the top item on the national Politifact website and, I understand, getting a lot of attention.
(By the way, Politifact Tennessee has also awarded a “pants on fire” to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for an attack on U.S. Rep. Scott DesJarlais and put up some other fresh stuff.)
An emailer, meanwhile, sends along a link to an article that begins like this:
Tennessee state senator Stacey Campfield continued his media campaign against homosexuality and discussions about gay lives in schools by appearing on the David Pakman Show.
During his 10-minute interview on Monday, Campfield seemed to indicate that insurance companies raise their rates for homosexuals. He claimed this to be true because the companies have statistics showing that gays, when compared to others, live significantly shorter lives — by a full 24 years!
Pakman asked the senator why his anti-gay politics are focused on anal sex between men.
And this, naturally, has inspired consternation among some Tennessee bloggers, including, for example, Southern Beale.
The article, with accompanying video, is HERE.

More from Sen. Campfield on AIDS, Monkeys and Related Topics

1 Reply

Sen. Stacey Campfield has posted on his blog a fairly lengthy discourse on the comments he made about AIDS during a radio show appearance, including multiple links.
It starts like this:
As you may have heard I was on some little radio show to talk about my “don’t teach gay” bill. After a few minutes the host (Who shall we say was not of a receptive lifestyle) jumped topics and I made some comments on how the homosexual lifestyle was WAAAAAAY more risky then the hetero sexual lifestyle. Of course the regulars went bonkers. Here are some facts on the issues we covered.
Note: In case you haven’t heard about this, previous post HERE.

Miscellaneous TN News Notes. 9/17/11

1 Reply

GM To Reopen Spring Hill Plant
DETROIT (AP) — As part of a tentative agreement reached with the United Auto Workers, GM will reopen its idled assembly line at its plant in Spring Hill, officials said late Friday.
Details weren’t immediately released, but the union said the contract will ensure that laid-off workers will be hired back.
The union said the contract also will improve health-care benefits and profit-sharing plans.
Ketron Honored for Hearing Aid Bill
Families of children who needed access to affordable hearing aids will honor state Sen. Bill Ketron Sept. 21, reports the Daily News Journal.
Families and many statewide agencies, including the host of the event, the Tennessee Disability Coalition, labored in support of this legislation. The event was organized to show their appreciation for Ketron’s leadership in passing hearing aid coverage for children, which was signed into law by Gov. Bill Haslam in May.
Mayor to Maintain Dual Role
While there may be some sentiment in Arlington against Mayor-elect Mike Wissman serving as the town’s leader and on the county school board, there apparently is nothing in the suburb’s rules to prohibit the dual role, according to the Commercial Appeal.
Wissman defeated three other candidates in Thursday’s election to replace Russell Wiseman as Arlington’s mayor. The question of Wissman serving on the school board and as the town’s leader emerged as a campaign issue in the closing weeks.
The mayor-elect has pledged to keep both seats for Arlington to have an inside view along the consolidated school district path. He also wants to prevent the County Commission from appointing someone if he steps down.
The state Supreme Court has thrown out a lawsuit from a man demoted from department chair at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga to tenured professor, reports the Chattanooga TFP
.
According to the Supreme Court ruling, William Harman, then chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religion, was demoted in 2008 after refusing to change his evaluation of an assistant professor.
In a review, Harman had said Talia Welsh’s was unprofessional, citing an extramarital affair with an undergraduate student, falsified reports and lies about papers she said she had published.
Dean Herbert Burhenn, Harman’s boss, told him to remove the negative review, and when Harman refused, Burhenn demoted him.
Tennessee’s whistleblower law protects employees from being fired if they refuse to perform illegal activities. Because Harman wasn’t fired, the Supreme Court ruled that he was not protected.
Cumberland Board Members Quit
Four of the five members on Cumberland County’s Health and Safety Standards Board, which deals with abandoned or neglected properties, have resigned in a dispute with the county commission, reports the Crossville Chronicle.
The members resigned after several county commissioners attended the meeting and at least three of them questioned committee members regarding operations, cases they were discussing and the procedures of the committee.
John Kinnunen, who served as chairman of the Health and Safety Standards Board said, “It was obvious that the underlying cause of the questioning was to eliminate the committee and save the county the $9,500 a year (budgeted) for the board. They feel they can pass the problems on to the Environmental Committee. It’s obvious they want to keep the county in the past and not progress into the future and to let people do whatever they want on their property and feel there is no need for the committee … We just decided that they were so adamant in their feelings that there was no reason for us to continue due to the lack of support from those commissioners. It was obvious they would continue criticizing whatever we do as a board in the future, so we resigned.”
Acquittal in Blog-inspired Assault Case
An assault case sparked by accusations of insults on a Loudon County blog ended in a not-guilty verdict for a Tellico Village resident, reports the News Sentinel.
Angelo Paul Leone, 69 was found not guilty of assaulting Tellico Village General Manager Winston Blazer during an August 21, 2009 incident at the Property Owners Association offices.
Leone — who feels he was harassed in the days before his arrest because he was among a group of residents who requested documents related to the management of the POA. — said he deserves an apology for being wrongly accused.
“It’s terrible, what they tried to do to me,” Leone said.
The assault charge grew out of a confrontation between Leone and Blazer over what Leone calls “the most vile and disgusting” defamations on a local Tellico Village blog known as Topix. The posts referenced Leone’s intentions to run for the board and also made references to his wife that he said were “of a sexual nature.”

Blogger Concerns on New Harassment Law Overblown?

2 Replies

From an article in Metro Pulse:
Over the past week, you might have seen this headline from Gizmodo floating around your social networks: “Tennessee Just Made Offensive Online Pictures Illegal.” Yes, influential bloggers and tweeters across the country are yet again making fun of Tennessee. The problem is, very few of them seem to have bothered to read the law.
Take that Gizmodo post, which says “an online image of anything that offends anyone is now illegal” and likely to land you in a Tennessee jail. Or Ars Technica, which writes, “for image postings, the ’emotionally distressed’ individual need not be the intended recipient. Anyone who sees the image is a potential victim.” Sounds like a reason to panic, right? But it turns out these comments are off base.
…In an e-mail, University of Tennessee law Professor Glenn Reynolds says he thinks the law is “probably overbroad and thus unconstitutional–though whether it’s sufficiently overbroad to be unconstitutional in general, and not just in some applications isn’t open-and-shut, but it probably is.”
But, Reynolds adds, “Cyberstalking is a real problem, and it’s often hard to get authorities to do much even when it’s by phone or e-mail. This statute isn’t–as some have portrayed it as being–some sort of crazy ban on all offensive images. It’s a perfectly reasonable technological update that just isn’t very well drafted.”
Of course, anyone filing a complaint because he or she is offended by a random Internet image will have to go through the whole criminal process. Somehow, it seems unlikely that law enforcement authorities across the state will suddenly devote their already stretched resources to pursuing spurious claims of harassment from citizens offended by their local newspaper’s website.
In any case, the newly changed law seems most likely to end up being challenged in court before we see any of the worst-case scenarios dreamed up by bloggers.