In which I lead a round of cheers for......Wyatt Bunker?????

I am just as shocked as you, my friends.  I have been opposed to this person holding office, well, ever since he has HELD office.  I now admit freely that I took pictures used in a TV spot for EC Jones when Mr. Bunker ran for a City Council position from a storage space on Highway 64.  Mr. Bunker lost that race, but was elected to other offices, including the one he is vacating on the County Commission and the one he is moving to as the newly-elected Mayor of Lakeland.

So, why, pray tell, am I leading hosannas for someone whose politics I find abhorrent 99.9% of the time?  Because only he, among all elected Republicans in Shelby County, realizes the damage that Shelby County Elections Administrator Richard Holden is doing to the elective process, and secondarily, to the image of the Shelby County Republican Party.  On his way out the County Commission door to Lakeland, Mr. Bunker is trying to get a VOTE OF NO CONFIDENCE from the Commission in the abilities of Mr. Holden as Administrator.

One can speculate at will as to Commissioner/Mayor Bunker's motives all you want, but I salute him for doing what no other Republican has had the guts to do: recognize the absolute mess that Holden has made of the Election Commission, resulting in a lack of confidence that they can hold an election free of doubt and controversy.

Of course, getting the SCEC to do something about Holden is another matter entirely.  Election Commissioner Dee Nollner, per the linked Jackson Baker article above, has attacked Bunker and defended the indefensible Holden, leading Bunker to suggest that Nollner has "drunk the Kool-Aid".  One expects in an Election Commission populated by three Republicans and two Democrats that the GOP will receive the benefit of the doubt.  However, when the Commission has been shown to be downright incompetent and inept, and the SCEC ignores its Democratic members and does what it wants, that does NOT provide confidence to the public that they know what they are doing or that we will have safe, secure and accurate elections.

For whatever reason Commissioner/Mayor Bunker is doing this, I still salute him for his actions, because this needs to happen, and YESTERDAY, if possible.

Oh heavens, the GOP is in FULL PANIC mode again.

I really think that Speaker Williams ought to have a cardboard cutout of Jimmy Naifeh to put in the Speaker's chair whenever he has to step away for a moment; the Mumpower 49 would have multiple coronaries.

The latest comes from a WSMV report that a resolution may be introduced in the House tomorrow to create a CEREMONIAL title for Naifeh, that of Speaker Emeritus, and the GOP is going BERSERK.  Go watch GOP Assistant House Leader Glen Casada in that video, and see if he isn't on the verge of collapse.

IT'S A CEREMONIAL TITLE, PEOPLE, NOT THE FREAKING KEYS TO THE KINGDOM.  BREATHE, WILL YOU?

Even our own Aunt B., for heaven's sakes, got the twitches about this, for some reason.

What this suggests to me is that Mumpower and Casada, by apparently NOT considering for a moment that they needed to do some SERIOUS ass-kissing for a guy they tried to beat TWICE and failed, sealed their own doom. 

They are idealogues and zealots and haven't the faintest idea how to actually RUN anything, and they have proved that running the Tennessee House of Representatives is WAY above their capabilities.

There ARE good people on the other side of the aisle, folks; I would mention some of them by name, except that I'm afraid the mullahs in charge of the Mumpower Jihad would make their lives a living hell and question their motives.  They are going to be hurt by this, and, by extension, so are we.

We need TWO strong, capable, parties in this country, and clearly nationally, and in the Tennessee House, we only have one functional party.  The sooner the House Republicans figure out that they will wind up tossed out if they keep following Mumpower, the better off they will be.

I'm not holding my breath.

Now, if we could just build a statue of Naifeh outside the House chambers.......