Newscoma

I asked for a receipt Super Tuesday. I told the election worker that if I could get one from McDonalds, why couldn’t I have one for my vote?

I didn’t get one.

Well, today is the day to talk about this in Nashville.

HB 1256/SB 1363, Tennessee’s Voter Confidence Act, goes to a full floor vote in the House on Tuesday, May 13. In the Senate it has one more committee (Finance Ways & Means) hoop to jump through today, Monday, May 12. Senate F, W & M members are:

Randy McNally, Chair; Douglas Henry, Vice-Chair; Tim Burchett, Secretary; Diane Black, Raymond Finney, Joe Haynes, Rosalind Kurita, Jim Kyle, Mark Norris, Bo Watson and John Wilder.

Please don’t hesitate. Call them now.

Liberadio has a copy of the bill as well. Head there for the details.

Congressman Steve Cohen has a reputation of saying what is ever on his mind and usually his words are laced with pop culture analogies, Memphis anecdotes as well as that he is Tennessee’s only liberal rep in Congress.

And he has mightily pissed off the Tennessee Guerilla Woman as well as others for this comment on Hillary Clinton.

This week, Obama-backing Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., said on local television, when asked about Sen. Clinton, that “Glenn Close should have just stayed in the tub.”

[He was] referring to Close playing the insane, deluded Alex Forrest — the wronged “other woman” who refuses to accept her fate and just go away, and becomes suicidal and homicidal. . as the late great Pauline Kael wrote in The New Yorker at the time, the “film is about men seeing feminists as witches.”

Cohen issued an apology on the thread at TGW. Here’s a snippet:

I sincerely apologize for the comments I made about Senator Clinton’s campaign. I have great respect for Senator Clinton as a US Senator. She has waged an historic campaign which has done much to break the glass ceiling.

Braisted weighs in:

While I certainly think Obama is going to be the nominee, as he has been able to win a key demographic during this primary….voters; I don’t think it helps to go around comparing Clinton to psycho women in movies.

I agree with Braisted. I also think everyone, Clinton, Obama, **insert name here** has said some dumb things at different times. (Hillary and the Bosnia sniper fire thing was huge to many people I’ve spoken to who are not political pundits. She’s been talking unity. I’m glad for that one.)

One thing: during these last days before the Democratic Party has a nominee, Hillary supporters aren’t going to be happy if she doesn’t get the nomination and Obama supporters aren’t going to be happy if he doesn’t get the nomination.

Clinton is a formidable politician as is Obama. Clinton and Obama’s campaigns has collectively left many non-political people with a huge case of Election Fatigue Syndrome. Cohen shouldn’t have said what he did but on the other hand, he’s always said things and has had to take his foot out of his mouth on occasion.I’m not condoning his Glenn Close comment with that said.

And he did apologize.

I like Cohen. I didn’t like what he said but I also know that nine times out of ten, I like how he votes in Washington.

I’m just saying.

Vibinc, a blogger in Memphis, is digging around and doing a bit of citizen journalism at his blog on Pinnacle/Labor Negotiations and has even interviewed a member of the Air Line Pilots Association in three parts of a series called Something Stinky In The Air.

Last time, we learned about the willingness of Pinnacle to lose business for the sake of maintaining an adversarial relationship with their employees. Below is a response from a source at the ALPA (Air Line Pilots Association) to some questions I submitted about the negotiations and general conditions at Pinnacle.

To read the whole thing in order. start here.

This story is multi-layered. We are reading not only about an issue that Vibinc is passionate about, but we are watching him dig beneath the surface on an issue that some people might not fathom.

Nikki Tinker is running against Congressman Steve Cohen in District 9. Vibinc is wondering about the details and just asked. This is what he got:

So, what we’re left with is a picture of a company intent on maintaining a discordant relationship with their workforce despite potential revenue loss from their largest customer. Attempts by management to end around labor in the acquisition of a failing airline, with money losing routes, not to mention “union busting” tactics from the highest quarters in the management team. Sounds like managerial brilliance huh? I had one more question that needed to be answered.

Q. What role has Nikki Tinker, VP, Labor Relations and General Counsel, and candidate for Democratic nomination to the US House, played in the contract negotiations?

A. Nikki Tinker has had little involvement with the pilot group since her hiring. Initially, she sat in contract negotiating sessions but was she was so anti-productive at the table the company asked her to step down. She also had a small period of involvement in the grievance process but once again her general disdain of reasonability and completely foreign concept of “organized” labor and contractual rights rendered her input worthless and the company once again asked her to step down.

Vibinc is asking questions.