This Sunday, please make the time to honor your mom for her sacrifice, commitment and love. Mothers, we salute you and thank God for the sustaining influence you make in our lives.

 

 

SAVE THE DATE…

Mark your calendars now for our annual dinner! Ticket information and purchase information will be available within the next two weeks. Watch your email!

MCCAIN’S MARCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE

Service, Honor, Duty VERSUS Promises, Platitudes and Pandering

This week, the service record of Senator John McCain was released by the Navy.

The choice is clear for November: vote for an authentic American Hero who has been decorated for his service and valor or a lawyer, politician who is willing to vote against funding our troops currently fighting for our liberty and willing to sit down in direct talks with terrorist groups like Hamas and rogue leaders like Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

DON’T BREAK THE TREND

John Roberts and Samuel Alito serve as the model of Justices who would be selected for appointment by John McCain as president. In his own words, John McCain makes clear his views:

“Federal courts are charged with applying the Constitution and laws of our country to each case at hand. There is great honor in this responsibility, and honor is the first thing to go when courts abuse their power. The moral authority of our judiciary depends on judicial self-restraint, but this authority quickly vanishes when a court presumes to make law instead of apply it. A court is hardly competent to check the abuses of other branches of government when it cannot even control itself.”

“For both Senator Obama and Senator Clinton, it turned out that not even John Roberts was quite good enough for them. Senator Obama in particular likes to talk up his background as a lecturer on law, and also as someone who can work across the aisle to get things done. But when Judge Roberts was nominated, it seemed to bring out more the lecturer in Senator Obama than it did the guy who can get things done. He went right along with the partisan crowd, and was among the 22 senators to vote against this highly qualified nominee. And just where did John Roberts fall short, by the Senator’s measure? Well, a justice of the court, as Senator Obama explained it — and I quote — should share ‘one’s deepest values, one’s core concerns, one’s broader perspectives on how the world works, and the depth and breadth of one’s empathy.’“

BUYOUTS, LAYOFFS, NEW TAXES

In the wake of a revenue shortfall in our state, Governor Phil Bredesen has announced that there will be “buyouts” of employees that will impact over 2000 workers. In total, the state budget needs to cut $468 million the proposed budget with $64 million resulting from the state employee layoffs, according to a press conference conducted by Gov. Bredesen.

While employees will be faced with a very tough decision on their employment and what their future holds, the Bredesen Administration continues to use taxpayer money to build the underground ballroom at the Governor’s Mansion and levying a new tax.

A few weeks ago, the Department of Revenue railed that “technical corrections” were in no way “new taxes” and that a tax on the digital download of songs had gone into effect on January 1, 2008. However, time has revealed in a March 12, 2008 memo from the same Department of Revenue that a sales tax on these digital downloads “are not subject to the sales and use tax” in Tennessee. Despite this ruling, Tennessee has been collecting the sales tax on these downloads.

Question: If the Department of Revenue is collecting a tax that went into effect on January 1, 2008 that was not previously there, and is attempting to expand, through a technical corrections bill, the scope of digital downloads to be taxed, how is that new revenue not a result of a new tax?

2nd Question: If Tennessee is collecting to this day a sales tax on downloads that began on January 1, 2008, then publishes a ruling on March 12, 2008 that these downloads are not subject to a sales tax, will there be refunds to those erroneously taxed?

DESPITE DEMOCRAT OBSTRUCTION, SEN. CORKER CALLS FOR COLUMBIA TRADE AGREEMENT

Sen. Bob Corker joined Senate colleagues, Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, Florida Governor Charlie Crist, and Hispanic leaders at a roundtable discussion to organize the launch of a Hispanic coalition of grassroots activists in support of the U.S.-Colombia Trade Agreement, which he said would level the playing field with Colombia, boost the economy, and create American jobs.

“From the standpoint of our own economic interests and from the stand point of our own national security interests, it is totally inappropriate that this free trade agreement has not been to the floor for a vote. It’s in all of our interests to see that it happens. And we hope that those who care about the relationship between us and those in Latin America will put pressure on the House to make sure that this comes to a full vote in the House - a vote of conscience. And we believe if that occurs, this will pass.”

According to the U.S. Commerce Department, in 2007, more than 90 percent of Colombia’s imports into the United States entered duty-free under unilateral U.S. trade preference programs, such as the Andean Trade Preference Act. Passage of the U.S. Colombia Free Trade Agreement will level the playing field by providing duty-free treatment for U.S. exports to the fast-growing Colombian market. Colombia is the third largest export market for U.S. farm products in the hemisphere, it was stated.

Last year, Tennessee’s exports to Colombia totaled $151 million. That’s up more than 124 percent from just two years earlier and is across a wide range of sectors, including $67 million in computers and electronics exports, $18 million in chemicals and more than $14 million in transportation equipment, the group said.

60 YEARS OF INDEPENDENCE

The nation of Israel has fought for its independence and democracy in the Middle East for centuries and commemorates its 60 years as a nation, a partner in peace and an ally of America.

The importance of Israel will be a top issue in the presidential election in November. To mark Israel’s milestone of independence, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spewed his remarks this week: “Those who think they can revive the stinking corpse of the usurping and fake Israeli regime by throwing a birthday party are seriously mistaken. Today the reason for the Zionist regime’s existence is questioned, and this regime is on its way to annihilation.” Ahmadinejad further stated that Israel “has reached the end like a dead rat…”

Our votes this November must be cast for those who are solid in their stance on the war on terror, their views on Israel’s right to protect its citizenry and a partner for peace and democracy in the Middle East.