TRP Weekly Report - 6/19/08
SENIORS GET MORE HEALTHCARE OPTIONS
After years of study and work, the Long-Term Care Community Choices Act of 2008 is law. Senator Diane Black, R-Gallatin and Representative Debra Maggart, R-Hendersonville were among lawmakers participating in the governor’s signing ceremony. Senator Diane Black, a registered nurse, has been working on this issue of long-term care options for the elderly since 2001. Rep. Maggart has worked as a member of the House Health and Human Services Committee on this law that will now allow seniors more choices to have more residential care that is cost-effective and convenient.
More choices for Seniors…Thank you!
ENOUGH! LOOK AT THE FACTS!
Democrat Presidential nominee Barack Obama declared that Osama Bin Laden is free because of Republicans.
The facts:
1- The United States has not been attacked since September 11, 2001.
2- Senator Barack Obama has cast votes against the War on Terror and funding our soldiers to provide ammunition, armor and wage increases.
3- The Platform of the Democrat Party of 2000, published on August 15, 2000 (a year and almost a month before September 11, 2001) names Osama Bin Laden on page 47: “Whether terrorism is sponsored by a foreign nation or inspired by a single fanatic individual, such as Osama Bin Laden, Forward Engagement requires trying to disrupt terrorist networks, even before they are ready to attack.”
The same Democrat platform states, page 46, that, “In Iraq, we are committed to working with our international partners to keep Saddam Hussein boxed in, and we will work to see him out for power.” On the same page, the Democrats pound their chests proclaiming, “Our first priority must be to continue the work we have begun in cutting stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, halting testing, and ensuring that weapons and weapons-grade material do not fall into the wrong hands.”
Since 2001, Republicans have stood for these same policies and enacted them, obviously Democrats continue to only offer empty rhetoric to sound tough on terror and it’s just to get elected.
No, Mr. Obama, we’ll neither take lectures from your campaign nor any other Democrat who invests in an American defeat in the War on Terror as a strategy to win elections.
MCCAIN’S MARCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE
McCain vs. Obama - Right vs. Wrong on the Courts
Addressing the decision by the divided Supreme Court to permit Guantanamo prisoners representation in U.S. Courts, John McCain stated, “These are enemy combatants, these are people who are not citizens, they are not and never have been given the rights that the citizens of this country have. Our first obligation is the safety and security of this nation and the men and women who defend it.”
According to the Miami Herald, Barack Obama “praised Thursday’s Supreme Court decision to allow detainees the right to appeal to U.S. civilian courts to challenge their indefinite imprisonment without charges. Enforcing such rights, he said, is ‘the essence of who we are.’ Even after Nazi atrocities became known in the 1940s, he said, “we still gave them a day in court’ at the Nuremberg trials.”
TAKING THE HILL
A.J. McCall - Tennessee House District 46
A.J. McCall is a Lebanon businessman with longstanding ties to the community and the region. A.J. was born in Smith County to Albert and Virginia McCall and attended Castle Heights Military Academy in Lebanon. He holds a bachelor’s degree in engineering and a law degree. McCall served in the Tennessee National Guard and was commissioned as an officer in 1982. He served in the U.S. Army Reserves until 1990 as a military intelligence officer. McCall practiced law before joining the family-owned business that was founded by his grandfather and store namesake, D.T. McCall. A.J. McCall is the company’s CEO.
A.J. is married to Beth McCall, a nurse. They have two children, a son in college at Union University in Jackson and a daughter in the eighth grade at Friendship Christian School in Lebanon. The McCalls live in the Tucker’s Crossroads area of Lebanon.
“In 2002, our state was at a crucial crossroads. At that time, some members of the state legislature were attempting to pass a state income tax. I took it upon myself to call our state representative, Rep. Stratton Bone, to voice my concern. When I made that call, I made it clear that the people of the 46th district did not need or want more taxation. I made a promise to Rep. Bone that if he voted for the state income tax, I would run against him. I decided that it was time to make good on that promise,” states McCall.
Visit A.J.’s website - http://ajmccall.com/ - and offer your volunteer time and your financial support!
BREDESEN ADMINISTRATION FAILURE COSTS STATE MILLIONS IN FUNDING FOR SERVICES FOR THE MENTALLY DISABLED
Last fall, even as it began spending more than $8 million to add an underground ballroom project to the governor’s mansion, the Bredesen administration slashed funding for certain health services for the state’s more than 6,000 mentally disabled children. That was bad enough, but today we learn that the administration’s six years of failure to clean up mismanagement of the Division of Mental Retardation Services has cost Tennessee tens of millions of dollars in lost federal funding for services for the mentally disabled.
The Tennessean newspaper exposed the incompetence today with a report detailing widespread waste and mismanagement which the administration has known about for years but which still festers.
Just from April 2005 to May 2007, the administration’s continued incompetence cost the state $31 million in federal funding. And this is just in one division of one department of state government - there is no telling how much additional mismanagement and outright fraud in state government is wasting your tax dollars.
SOLUTIONS…NOT SOUND BYTES!
Congressman Jimmy Duncan joined Jim Haslam, founder of Pilot Corp. to address the 75% increase in gas prices since the beginning of 2007, “Americans agree that while we develop alternatives to petroleum that we should be exploring for more of our own oil right here in our Country, and still they are ignored by the majority in the Congress. Unless we get control of the situation now, the prices of everything from food to clothing will be affected by the continued increase in fuel prices.”
According to a recent Gallup poll, the majority of Americans support drilling in coastal and wilderness areas. There are over one trillion barrels of oil estimated to be available domestically in areas that are currently off-limits. One million barrels of oil will produce 27 million gallons of gas and diesel fuel. Even the smallest increase in production would not only create jobs, but it would send a message to oil exporting countries that they cannot simply continue to drive up the price of oil.
“No other Nation in the entire world has as many restrictions on developing their own oil and natural gas resources. Every other Nation regards their natural resources as economic assets. It is a shame there are some elitists in the Congress who regard the natural resources here in the United States as environmental liabilities.
“Environmental groups claim to want to save the environment. Instead, they are only helping foreign energy producers at the expense of lower- and middle-income Americans.”
ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION “CATCH AND RELEASE” MUST STOP
Congressman Marsha Blackburn recently wrote as an advocate for legislation before the U.S. House that would give law enforcement “the ability to protect our communities by kicking proven violent offenders out.” Rep. Blackburn identified one county in Tennessee that has a relationship with DHS that allows them to identify criminal aliens in county jails, which has resulted in 3,000 illegal aliens being turned over to the federal government for deportation.
