Nashville News Blog

​Wamp, Roe and Davis are against letting gays serve openly in the military. ... Haslam is unleashing TV ads in Wamp's backyard this week ... Wamp calls it a sign of desperation. ... Wamp wins Jackson straw poll. ... Only a month after racing to the top, critics say Tennessee is going soft on education reform. ... Gaile Owens asks the state Supreme Court to commute her death sentence. .. Loud growls disturb neighbors of East Tennessee's tiger sanctuary. Lawmakers file a bill. More weird bills here and here.

Should Mary Mancini lose her press pass at the Capitol? ... Why the wine bill may chill for yet another session. ... Vaughn tops Shipley in campaign cash. ... Herenton kicks off congressional campaign: "I'm back." ... Dwight Lewis slams Ramsey for pandering to birthers: "Heaven help Tennessee's Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey." ... The Chattanooga Times comments on "the shameful" TennCare cuts:

Mr. Bredesen's Medicaid cuts should not stand. But the Legislature, controlled by Republicans who had rather impose harsh emotional and physical costs on citizens than raise taxes modestly, is almost certain to go along. More people will suffer deeply, and needlessly, for these misguided policies.

Harold Ford thinks there's a certain segment of Tennesseans who wouldn't accept his wife. Perhaps the kind of Tennesseans who would pose with a Confederate flag?

​Harold Ford Jr. continues to sell out the state that, just a few months ago, he thought he might want to serve as governor. He sat down with Maureen Dowd of the New York Times and made it as clear as he could that a vote for him is basically a vote against all the things that caused him to flee Tennessee for New York.

Even though he still keeps a residence here.

You see, apparently we're just dumb, ignorant assholes. Sadly for Ford, we're not so dumb or ignorant that we can't, oh, you know, read the New York Times and see what he says about us.

First, he hates us because he doesn't think we'd ever accept his wife.

There was so much bad racial stuff out of Tennessee on Obama. I'm in an interracial marriage. I don't want to subject my wife to this, and I want to start a family. I think my marriage is more accepted here than it would be in Tennessee.

Shoot, what's the answer to that one? This guy just paid me 100 grand for a speech and a question and answer session. What's he asking me? Maybe I can get away with saying death panels, Socialism and where's his birth certificate. Oh, wait, I wrote some crib notes on my hand--energy, that's it! Whew.--Chattahbox

Scandal of the evening: the scribbling on Sarah Palin's palm.

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The chattering class truly does love to chatter about Sarah Palin. She was the life of the tea party Saturday night, and all the blogging and tweeting about her big Opryland appearance is making Pith's head spin.

She's lost weight, hasn't she? Maybe she's chopping wood to stay in shape. Did you see her fabulous strands of pearls? And that small pin in her lapel? It had two flags--could you tell?--one for Israel and one for the USA.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

​The Washington Post ballyhooed it as the startling unveiling of the tea party movement's broad national organizing strategy for the 2010 midterm elections. The Post's man on the scene at Opryland, somebody named Philip Rucker, reported:

This will be the first such national plan for a political movement that arose a year ago, partly in response to President Obama's policies and is made up of hundreds of local tea party groups. It comes as hundreds of tea party organizers have convened to discuss ways to use their grass-roots power to create tangible political success this year.

And it was all to be revealed to the mere mortals in the media at an afternoon press conference. Well, the presser is over, and we have to admit we're a little disappointed. The grand announcement? The fast-talking dude who by default has become the convention spokesman announced--ta da!--he's setting up a corporation to set up a political action committee to try to suck up tea party cash.

Mark Skoda, a tea partier from Memphis, made it sound like his new Ensuring Liberty Corp. is backed broadly by the tea party movement. But he finally acknowledged under questioning that it's actually not. "Ensuring Liberty Corporation and the affiliated PAC which is being formed is distinct and separate from Tea Party Nation and the tea party movement," he told reporters.

Who's PAC is it? "I'm the leader of the PAC," Skoda said.

Update: The Post's Mr. Rucker seems deflated by the press conference too. His follow-up report is less hyperbolic: "It was difficult to determine during Skoda's 30-minute news conference whether his PAC had been embraced nationally or whether he was launching it as a lone wolf. Pressed by reporters, Skoda acknowledged that his PAC does not yet have support from the hundreds of activist groups that make up the tea party movement. The PAC, Skoda said, is 'distinct and separate from Tea Party Nation and the tea party movement.'"

Roy Moore

​Leave it to the "Ten Commandments judge" to inject gay bashing into the tea party convention. In his big speech this afternoon, Roy Moore castigated President Obama for the far-right's usual litany of offenses and added this one for good measure: Obama had the audacity to issue a proclamation for "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month." To Moore, that means the president "has elevated immorality to a new level."

"Go forth armed in the holy cause of liberty," he told the cheering tea partiers.

Here's the money quote from the judge who became a conservative hero for his refusal, as the elected chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, to remove a monument of the Ten Commandments from the state courthouse:

"[Obama] has ignored our history and our heritage, arrogantly declaring to the world that we are no longer a Christian nation. He has elevated immorality to a new level, setting aside the entire month of June to celebrate gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender pride. He now threatens to change our law to allow homosexuality in our military ... He's apologized to the Arab world for our past, subjugated our national sovereignty by bowing down to the king of Saudi Arabia. He has pursued a socialist agenda by taking control of private companies and pushing a national health care plan with a public option. Backed by a willing Congress, he's bought off our senators and representatives with our own money in an effort to mandate his agenda."

To arthouse aficionados, Chantal Akerman's 1975 film Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles is an event akin to Avatar -- a movie that absolutely, positively demands to be seen on the big screen. If you're remotely curious, you shouldn't miss its three-day run this weekend at The Belcourt -- since you've got a better chance of seeing a Titans Super Bowl victory before the 201-minute film plays again in a commercial Nashville theater.

Vanderbilt professor of women's studies Kelly Oliver hosts the 7:30 screening tonight. No exaggeration: I've been waiting to see this movie for 20 years. Mike D'Angelo describes its appeal in this week's Scene: