CAPITOL VIEW
By Pat Nolan, NEWSCHANNEL5 Political Analyst
December 8, 2023
WHAT A RECORD-BREAKING YEAR FOR LEGENDARY FEMALE RECORDING ARTISTS INCLUDING SEVERAL WITH NASHVILLE TIES LEADING THE WAY; INSIDE POLITICS EXAMINES THE CONGRESSIONAL IMPASSE OVER MORE AID TO UKRAINE AND ISRAEL; THE O’CONNELL ADMINISTRATION HITS ITS FIRST SPEED BUMP WITH THE METRO COUNCIL; THE O’CONNELL ADMINISTRATION HITS ITS FIRST SPEED BUMP WITH THE NEW METRO COUNCIL; FORMER MAYOR MEGAN BARRY TO RUN FOR CONGRESS; THE TENNESSEE DEPARTMENT OF CHILDRENS SERVICES IS AGAIN DOING SOMETHING YOU WON’T BELIEVE
WHAT A RECORD-BREAKING YEAR FOR LEGENDARY FEMALE RECORDING ARTISTS INCLUDING SEVERAL WITH NASHVILLE TIES LEADING THE WAY
As the year 2023 enters its final month, a trio of legendary female recording stars, including two with Nashville ties, are setting records for their songs and albums on several different BILLBOARD charts. In fact, all these women are in their middle to late 70s. The Nashville-related stars are Brenda Lee and Dolly Parton. They are joined by rock and roll icon, Cher, in showing the Baby Boomer generation is still going strong!
But regardless of gender or age, the top star of the year 2023 is Taylor Swift, another icon with Nashville ties. To the rejoicing of “Swifty” fans across the country and around the world.
The designation of Person of the Year (formerly Man of the Year) has often been bestowed on major world leaders, including 14 U.S. presidents. But Swift got the nod in 2023, he wrote because TIME wrote of her "singular influence."
"In a divided world, where too many institutions are failing, Taylor Swift found a way to transcend borders and be a source of light. No one else on the planet today can move so many people so well."
For Brenda Lee, the accolades continued throughout the week.
AXIO NASHVILLE reports State Rep. Jason Powell (D-Nashville) filed legislation that would make "Rockin Around the Christmas Tree'" the state's "official holiday song. "Brenda Lee is a music icon and a true Tennessee treasure," Powell said in a statement."' Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree' has spread holiday joy throughout the world for decades and we are proud her number one song was made in Nashville."
Then on Friday there came confirmation that one of Dolly Parton’s companies has acquired a building on Commerce Street downtown. At this point, there is no official word for how the new acquisition will be employed but THE NASHVILLE BUSINESS JOURNAL says the building is likely to be renovated into a hotel.
INSIDE POLITICS EXAMINES THE CONGRESSIONAL IMPASSE OVER MORE AID TO UKRAINE AND ISRAEL
While we have no troops on the ground or in combat, the United States is significantly involved in two major wars. One includes our huge financial and weapons support for Ukraine where that country has been trying for almost two years to repeal an invasion by Russia.
The other war began in early October where the terrorist group Hamas staged an incursion into Israel, killing over a thousand and taking hundreds hostage. Israel has invaded the Gaza Strip and is seeking to wipe out Hamas.
But there is a debate in Congress about whether to continue our aid to Ukraine and Israel. All this comes as the nation bids goodbye to former Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger. Kissinger died last week at age 100. He molded U.S. policy foreign policy during the 1970s and the Cold War, and he was a key advisor on foreign policy issues and even up until his passing.
How would he be handling these crises? To discuss that and how aid to Israel and Ukraine is likely to play out, we’ve asked Vanderbilt Distinguished Professor of History and Political Science, Dr. Thomas Schwartz to join us this week on INSIDE POLITICS.
We welcome Dr. Schwartz back to the program.
Our INSIDE POLITICS discussion with Dr. Schwartz will air on its regular weekend schedule on NEWSCHANNEL5 PLUS.
Those times include:
7:00 p.m. Friday.
5:00 a.m., 3:00 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. on Saturday.
1:30 a.m. & 5:00 a.m. on Sunday.
THE PLUS is on Comcast Cable channel 250, Charter Cable channel 182, and on NEWSCHANNEL5’s over-the-air digital channel 5.2. We are also on DISH TV with the rest of the NEWSCHANNEL5 NETWORK.
One option for those who cannot see the show locally, or who are out of town, you can watch it live with streaming video on NEWSCHANNEL5.com. Just use your TiVo or DVR, if those live times don't work for you.
This week’s show and previous INSIDE POLITICS interviews are also posted on the NEWSCHANNEL5 website for your viewing under the NEWSCHANNEL5 PLUS section. A link to the show is posted as well on the Facebook page of NEWSCHANNEL5 PLUS. Each new show and link are posted early in the week after the program airs. I am also posting a link to the show each week on my Facebook page.
NOTE: As Congress continues to struggle about how to solve its ongoing funding issues, that threaten not just one but two government shutdowns early next year, lawmakers are again considering buying more time by passing a continuing funding resolution to keep the lights on. Such a move earlier this year led Republicans to fire then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. McCarthy announced this week he is resigning from Congress, leaving early at the end of this year. His exit and others in the works could further narrow the razor-thin GOP majority in the House.
Also late Thursday, Hunter Biden, the President’s son was indicted on more tax charges, this time in California. This coming Monday, the U.S. House is expected to take a vote formalizing an impeachment inquiry of the President's son’s activities playing a major role. Any hard evidence of wrongdoing by the President has surfaced.
THE O’CONNELL ADMINISTRATION HITS ITS FIRST SPEED BUMP WITH THE NEW METRO COUNCIL
No one should overreact.
The political honeymoon of new Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell and the new Metro Council is not over.
The Council’s 24-14 rejection Tuesday night of a new contract for upgraded Taser services for Metro Police is, for now, at most, a speed bump. Metro has another three years left on its current Taser contract. But the Council vote does raise questions about another pending vote next year to allow the city to implement countywide, another controversial crime-fighting tool, license plate readers.
The Metro Council and the Police Department have slowly been moving more and more to be on different pages over the last few years. In the summer of 2020, in the wake of civil unrest in Nashville and across the country after the George Floyd murder, many activists urged the previous Council to “defund police.”
Of course, that didn’t happen. But every year since, during budget public hearings and whenever Metro Police have asked for extra funds for upgraded equipment such as a new helicopter, the activists have taunted and teased the Council that it never tells the Police no on anything.
Tuesday the new Council did say no. The same one that will vote on whatever contract the O’Connell administration brings to the 40-member body in 2024 to place license plate readers all over Davidson County. Even putting up a few readers for a trial program provoked a multi-year political fight, as progressives in the last Council said the readers raise privacy and concerns about targeting persons of color. Now the new Council is considered to be even more progressive.
Even as a district council member last term Mayor O’Connell voted against the trial effort to have license plate readers. He now says that he believes with a few tweaks, a countywide reader program can work safely. But before he has spelled out those changes, why did his administration sent the new Taser contract to the Council especially with a price tag quite a bit higher ($18 million) than what the city pays now?
Tasar technology has its own set of controversies. It is not beyond belief that Councilman O’Connell might have voted against the new Taser contract due to its price tag or at least deferred the matter for more study. A deferral by the mayor’s office might well have been the wisest course of action on this for now anyway. Stay tuned.
In other actions, the Council passed a memorializing resolution asking state lawmakers to keep accepting the $1 billion in federal aid it receives each year for education. There has been a joint State House and Senate special committee studying the idea of being the first state in the nation to reject the monies, due to fears of so-far unspecified “strings attached” by Washington officials to these funds. The Council resolution passed without dissent in committees but when it got to the floor a debate broke out anyway, with one lawmaker fearing the bill might further enflame the bad relationship between Metro and the State. But he wound up abstaining on the final vote and everyone else voted in favor.
Finally, THE NASHVILLE SCENE is ranking five new Metro Council members who they see as the outstanding “New Kids on the Block” so far this term, which is just entering its third month.
FORMER MAYOR MEGAN BARRY TO RUN FOR CONGRESS
After expressing interest in making a run a couple of weeks ago, former Nashville Megan Barry has announced she will be running next year against 7th District Republican Congressman Mark Green.
All three of the congressional districts that now represent Nashville/ Davidson County have been drawn majority Republican by the state Legislature Republican Super Majority. But based on the 2022 congressional elections, Green’s district found the smallest Republican Majority as the Congressman won re-election “only” by roughly a 60%-40% majority.
That could offer Barry a little hope for success with the part of Davidson County in the 7th District being largely West Nashville, where she did well when she became the first woman elected Mayor of Nashville in 2015.
But that was before she resigned from office in 2018 due to a sex scandal and felony theft charges arising out of an affair with her director of security. She pled guilty and was placed on probation. The former Mayor has completed her sentence and the matter has been expunged from her record.
But have voters in Nashville, and those in the rest of the 7th District, (which stretches from the Kentucky to the Alabama lines and includes parts of West Tennessee) forgotten? Can Barry receive the strong majority vote she needs from the Nashville portion of the district to give her a chance to be competitive in the much more Republican parts of the district? Yes, with the election being held in a presidential year, a huge turnout could be seen at the polls. But that could cut both ways. Former President Donald Trump will be on the same ballot seeking to carry Tennessee for the third consecutive time to again be President.
Already Barry is on the offensive going after her incumbent opponent on issues she thinks will be in her favor.
This week, the state of Tennessee has finalized its ballot for our state’s presidential preference primary set for March 5. But you may find the list of candidates confusing. That’s because it contains several Republican presidential candidates who have either already dropped out or who will likely pull out of the race after they don’t do well in other primaries to be held beginning early in 2024.
There are also other candidates and third parties trying to get on the ballot in Tennessee, especially for the November ballot. In fact, the Libertarian Party has filed suit in court challenging the constitutionality of Tennessee’s ballot access law.
To make things perhaps even more confusing, there is another recent lawsuit challenging a state law that requires voters in primary elections to be “bona fide” members of that political party.
Is it possible that one reason our voter turnout in Tennessee is so low is because our election laws are so (deliberately?) confusing?
THE TENNESSEE DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN'S SERVICES IS AGAIN DOING SOMETHING YOU WON’T BELIEVE
A few months ago, the state was scandalized by reports that the Tennessee Department of Children's Services (DCS) did not have enough foster homes or beds, they had children in their custody sleeping on the floors in the department’s offices.
Now there may be a new scandal brewing. DCS has changed its rules to allow the children in their custody to be handcuffed, multiple times if necessary.
The DCS Commissioner Margie Quinn is already set to testify and be questioned next week by state lawmakers about the scathing audit of the department surrounding children sleeping on the floor. Now she likely will have even more questions to answer.
