Commission chairman, Dr. Bob Ramsey is announcing his bid for the Tennessee House of Representatives seat being vacated by Doug Overbey. Here's what Ramsey says he plans to do for us:

"If elected, I will try to support the moral and ethical principles of Blount County citizens, our educational system, the protection of the physical and economic well-being of our citizens, the equitable and efficient responsibility for revenues, law and order and the protection of our natural surroundings."

His quote rings hollow. Chairman Ramsey, what have you done for us lately? Ramsey, like many of his mild-mannered Republicans, have allowed the thug-Republicans to rule. Rather than purging the party of the elected officials he KNOWS are sinister souls, he's done NOTHING. He's looked the other way while citizens have been followed home, harassed and intimidated. He's turned a blind eye to conflicts of interest. He's never taken elected officials to task over questionable expenditures.

If he can't represent us here at home, there's no reason for us to believe he will do justice to the job in Nashville.

An ongoing saga between Blount County Sheriff James Berrong and his former secretary came to a legal end on Thursday, with the U.S. Court of Appeals ruling in favor of an earlier district court decision.

Martin wrote that the U.S. District Court found that Nuchols had not stated a constitutional violation and that Berrong was therefore “entitled to qualified immunity.”

Berrong said on Saturday that the lawsuit, filed in May 2003, was “politically motivated.”

Ok someone with the power of sheriff threatens my family and if I sue I must be politically motivated?

Link...

There is an interesting game of finger pointing going on over in Knox County. Seems like I remember something going on here in Blount County about bonus payments from overtime accounts.

Hats off to the Daily Times for having the gumption to report the facts on this situation! Great job Rick Laney!

Immigrant: Judge told me to go home

Link...

“The judge shrugged his shoulders like he didn’t care — then he told me to go back to Nicaragua.

Read the whole thing and go buy the paper in case they get pressured to pull this article too! Last night I was able to veiw the breaking news on this thanks to BV's news-o-rama news aggregator. While I could view it via that link it could not be found on the DT's webpages by simply browsing.

Update for additional reporting by WVLT Link...

UppUppDate over on DailyKos Link...

It is all so easy folks.

Budget laws and those SROs is talked about here Link...

At the top of the Corporate foodchain we find the stockholders.
The bottom of the Corporate foodchain are the employees.

At the top of the County's org chart you find the voters.
At the bottom of the County's foodchain are the voters / taxpayers.

As far as I can tell committee meetings are not recorded and put on public access tv. If some kind person were willing to video these meetings and put them on YouTube it would be a great thing!

This is OUR business that is being conducted at these meetings. If you can't go then you are only able to get a second hand account about what was said or done. That means we get a filtered version of events. They count on this happening. They depend on us to stay home and read the filtered version of events. Go back to sleep people, nothing to see here!

The benefit of having those meetings where anyone can find them is that it will remove the curtains and allow everyone to see what is going on. From the mom with two jobs who can't possibly make those meetings to the retiree UpNorth who is narrowing down his choices of retirement homes.

Perhaps this should be done and paid for by the Blount County Democratic Party. Perhaps we should have a fund raiser just to raise the bucks to do this.