Morning Roundup: Lonely Lawmakers Go Without Free Booze and Other Distressing News

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Special interests report less wining and dining of lawmakers this session. ... Republican gubernatorial candidates fight for Middle Tennessee vote. ... The legislature may kill the Ethics Commission. Who needs ethics anyway? ... Sen. Mike Faulk wants to create a DUI repeat offender registry. ... How'd you like to pay a ticket tax for Titans games? ... Legislature might study effects of slavery and segregation. ... Federal stimulus money helps food and shelter programs. ... A TVA director quits on the same day a newspaper asks about his business and personal finances. ... TVA buys some property contaminated by coal ash. ... Broken plumbing, rusty equipment and chipping paint at state parks. ... Knoxville News Sentinel editor Jack McElroy on our personal-protection arms race:
So we become a society of armed camps, a perpetual war zone with a balance of power between the good guys and the bad. Will this bring about a more peaceful era, like the Mutually Assured Destruction standoff? Can we look forward to Aprils that are less cruel? One can only pray. It's ironic, though, that the massacre that was averted here in Knoxville wasn't stopped by an armed citizen. It was stopped in a church full mostly of avowed liberals who stood against a gunman, unarmed.
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