Sex on college campuses? WE’RE DOOMED!

Even in 2014, the topic of sex is one that can make otherwise normal people sometimes behave abnormally. So you can just imagine what it does to right-wing radicals who somehow think not talking about sex will make it go away.

Well, for a great example of how right-wing radicals behave in the face of “dirty sex talk” look no further than Tennessee. It seems a group of Republican lawmakers is fighting to remove Sex Week from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville campus.

I can almost understand the controversy with middle schools or high schools teaching sex to minors. If a parent’s personal feelings are against that (even though I think that’s pretty foolish) it’s their children and I can respect that. Those children are still minors, so hey - I’ll “give” a little bit when it comes to saying that they at least have a basis for argument.

But when you’re talking about adults talking with other adults about sex, on a college campus, that’s a whole different issue. Why would anyone oppose this? Are conservatives at such a ridiculous level of anti-sex rhetoric that now we don’t want adults discussing sex with other adults in an adult atmosphere?

What these lawmakers are essentially trying to do is pass legislation which will change how funds are distributed (as Sex Week is funded by student fees) in an attempt to prevent Sex Week from being able to be held on campus.

What is Sex Week, you ask? Well, it’s a series of lectures discussing sexuality and sexual health, sexual violence, dance classes, a drag show, an art show and a poetry slam.

Oh, it even has an abstinence seminar organized by the largest Christian group on campus.

More: Tennessee Republican Lawmakers Freak Out Because Adults Want to Talk About Sex With Other Adults

The state of Tennessee has fired a veteran investigator because officials believed that he attempted to use violent stories about how his relatives participated in a lynching to intimidate African-Americans who were trying to file claims against emergency responders.

WTVF reported that William Sewell, a medical service investigator who had been with the state for more than 40 years, told the graphic story to Shun Mullins last summer.

Mullins had filed a complaint claiming that his mother had died when the Algood’s deputy fire chief refused to perform CPR because she was black. The complaint stated that the fire chief covered it up by falsifying medical reports.

Sewell had started the meeting by asking Mullins if he had ever been to prison.

Read more at Raw Story

Getting desperate…

CHATTANOOGA, Tennessee (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee said on Wednesday he has been “assured” that if workers at the Volkswagen AG plant in his hometown of Chattanooga reject United Auto Worker representation, the company will reward the plant with a new product to build.

The only problem? He’s a lying GOP scumbag… but I repeat myself:

Gary Casteel, UAW regional director for a 12-state area that includes Tennessee, said on Wednesday night, “Corker’s statement is in direct contradiction to Volkswagen’s statements.

“They have specifically said that this vote will have no bearing on the decision of where to place the new product.”

Oh, and a comment like that? It’s quite possibly illegal:

“I’m really kind of shocked at Corker’s statement,” said Dau-Schmidt. “It’s so inconsistent with what VW has been saying and VW’s labor relations policy in general.”

The Indiana professor also said Corker’s comments “would be grounds to set the election aside and have to run it all over again at a later date” because it could be ruled to be interfering to the point that it is against federal labor law.

This just in from the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Hate Watch,

Tennessee State Senator Frank Niceley will be a featured speaker tomorrow at the “sixth session” of the Southern National Congress. Despite Niceley’s denials, the group is in fact an offshoot of the League of South, a neo-Confederate hate group that calls for a second secession.

The Southern National Congress first met in Montgomery, Ala., with the stated aim of creating “a permanent forum for the expression of distinct Southern interests, Southern grievances, and Southern solutions.” The Associated Press reported at the time that the “League of the South, a Southern independence group that is viewed as marginal and extremist by critics, is organizing the event.”

Make no mistake about it, I doubt that he’ll be able to get enough support in Tennessee to get the state government to even try to seceded from the union. Still its troubling that Niceley was able to get enough support to become a senator.

Read More Over At Hate Watch

On Monday, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that states have no constitutional obligation to honor public records requests from non-residents. Journalists, who frequently rely on freedom of information laws to expose corruption and break open stories, fear that the decision may make it harder for them to access public records.

MuckRock, a website that files public records requests on behalf of activists, journalists, and private citizens for a small fee and posts the resulting records online, has a solution. The website has been helping out-of-staters seeking public records in Virginia and seven other states with similar laws—Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and Tennessee—by pairing them with locals willing to co-file the requests. After Monday’s decision, MuckRock began offering free website subscriptions to citizens of those states to help keep that information flowing.

MuckRock cofounder Michael Morisy, who also works for the Boston Globe, says he “fully expect[s] more states to at least look into adding these laws as they look for ways to cut down on costs for complying with public records requests and generally decrease the amount of people accessing this tool.”

More: This Website Will Help You Outsmart the Supreme Court’s Anti-Transparency Ruling

f you’re worried about where America is heading, look no further than Tennessee. Its lush mountains and verdant rolling countryside belie a mean-spirited public policy that only makes sense if you believe deeply in the anti-collectivist, anti-altruist philosophy of Ayn Rand. It’s what you get when you combine hatred for government with disgust for poor people.

Tennessee starves what little government it has, ranking dead last in per capita tax revenue. To fund its minimalist public sector, it makes sure that low-income residents pay as much as possible through heavily regressive sales taxes, which rank 10th highest among all states as a percent of total tax revenues. (For more detailed data see here.)

As you would expect, this translates into hard times for its public school systems, which rank 48th in school revenues per student and 45th in teacher salaries. The failure to invest in education also corresponds with poverty: the state has the 40th worst poverty rate (15%) and the 13th highest state percentage of poor children (26%).

Employment opportunities also are extremely poor for the poor. Only 25% have full-time jobs, 45% are employed part-time, and a whopping 30% have no jobs at all.

So what do you do with all those low-income folks who don’t have decent jobs? You put a good number of them in jail. In fact, only Louisiana, Georgia and New Mexico have higher jail incarceration rates.

From the perspective of Tennessee legislators, it’s all about providing the proper incentives to motivate the poor. For starters, you make sure that no one could possible live on welfare payments (TANF: Temporary Assistance to Needy Families). Although President Clinton’s welfare reform program curtailed how long a family can receive welfare (60 months) and dramatically increased the work requirements, Tennessee set the maximum family welfare payment at only $185 per month. (That’s how much a top hedge fund manager makes in under one second.) As a result, the Volunteer State ranks 49th in TANF, just above Mississippi ($170).

More: FOCUS

You can’t make this shit up:

Building managers and legislative staffers have sought to reassure some concerned Tennessee lawmakers that recent renovations at the state Capitol did not install special facilities for Muslims to wash their feet before praying.

“I confirmed with the facility administrator for the State Capitol Complex that the floor-level sink installed in the men’s restroom outside the House Chamber is for housekeeping use,” Legislative Administration Director Connie Ridley wrote in an email. “It is, in layman’s terms, a mop sink.”

tennessean.com

Tennessee police might need better instruction in botany and Buckeye football.

A 65-year-old woman recently came under suspicion, she reported, for having a Buckeye leaf decal on her car. The cops mistook it for a marijuana symbol.

What they really need is better instruction in the First Amendment and
probable cause

“It’s just amazing they would be that dumb,” Bonnie Jonas-Boggioni said.

She lives in Plano, Texas, but she grew up in Columbus and is known as a lifelong Buckeyes fan.

She has served as president of the Ohio State Alumni Club in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

On Feb. 4, Jonas-Boggioni and husband Guido Boggioni, 66, were driving home to Plano after a trip to Columbus to attend the funeral of his mother, Eleanor, 92.

They were in the westbound lanes of I-40, a few miles east of Memphis, when a black police SUV with flashing lights pulled them over, Jonas-Boggioni said.A second black SUV soon pulled up behind the first one.

“Knowing I wasn’t speeding, I couldn’t imagine why,” she said.

Two officers approached, one on each side of the car.

“They were very serious,” she said. “They had the body armor and the guns.”

Because the couple’s two schnauzers were barking furiously, one of the officers had Jonas-Boggioni exit the car so he could hear her better.

“What are you doing with a marijuana sticker on your bumper?” he asked her.

She explained that it is actually a Buckeye leaf decal, just like the ones that Ohio State players are given to put on their helmets to mark good plays.

*snip*

Neither the Tennessee Highway Patrol nor the Shelby County sheriff’s office in Memphis had information about the traffic stop. A marijuana sticker would not be a sufficient reason to stop a car, said a spokeswoman for the West Tennessee Drug Task Force.

Even if it were, Jonas-Boggioni said, police hunting drugs should know that a Buckeye leaf — which has five leaflets — doesn’t look much like a marijuana leaf, which typically has seven leaflets and a narrower shape.

Before they let her go on her way, the officers advised Jonas-Boggioni to remove the decal from her car.

“I said, ‘You mean in Tennessee?’ and he said, ‘No, permanently.’

More: Buckeye Leaf Mistaken by Tennessee Police

Update: I guess I should get that Texas Star hibiscus leaf off my car.

Women in Tennessee soon may have to get an ultrasound before an abortion, under a bill filed in the state legislature.

State Sen. Jim Tracy, R-Shelbyville, has filed a measure that would require women to undergo a “transabdominal ultrasound” and wait at least 24 hours before going forward with an abortion.

Tennessee currently does not require women to have an ultrasound before an abortion, in part because the state Constitution has its own privacy clause. That has so far limited lawmakers’ ability to place restrictions on women seeking to end a pregnancy.

For that reason, Tracy’s proposal would almost certainly face a court challenge.

But eight other states do have ultrasound requirements, making them another battlefront between people seeking to discourage abortions and those who say ultrasounds violate women’s privacy and interfere in their relationships with their doctors.

More: TN Bill Would Require Ultrasound Before Abortion