Publisher's Positions

By Steve Hunley

Feds Say "No" To Bridge

The Knoxville City Council in a big rush to build a bridge to nowhere, watched as the University of Tennessee bought $9 million worth of property, which meant it disappeared from the tax rolls.  The university wants to build more student housing there and that raised the "need" of a bridge leading to Neyland Stadium.  There are enormous apartment complexes hulking on either side of the Henley Street Bridge and a one-armed man could count the number of students walking across that bridge.  The city government would have us believe they are waiting on a third bridge right down the street, a hop, skip and a jump from the stadium.  I have yet to hear anybody dispute the fact that the most foot traffic the bridge would ever see (should it be built), would be when it's football time in Tennessee and the Vol Navy fleet sets sail down the river and anchors beneath it and saunters across it, all courtesy of the taxpayers. Never mind the vast majority of the taxpayers who paid to build it don't own so much as a rowboat.

Kincannon told the city council she needed six figures to spend on someone who could write a grant to seek infrastructure funds from the Biden administration.  So the council, having all the backbone of a muffin, ponied up the money. Apparently, there was nobody in all of city government already on the payroll, nor at UT, who could write a federal grant application. Not one member of the city council, to my knowledge, had the foresight to ask if the city employed a grant writer.  So, more than $100,000 later, the Biden folks sent back a note saying: "NO."  The daily newspaper is fluttering and wringing its hands.  Is the new "pedestrian" bridge in trouble?  As the old folks used to say, someone would have to be "bold as brass" to refer to it as a "pedestrian bridge" as the Sentinel did.  Knoxville and her pedestrians have as much need for that bridge as an old maid needs a shaving mug.

Kincannon warbled that she will persevere and pointed to the $20 million in funding the State of Tennessee has offered.  Of course, Knox County was more polite than the Biden administration, but Mayor Glenn Jacobs told Indya thanks, but no thanks.  That's one big reason why the county isn't hiking property taxes every four years.  Now the feds have said they have better things to spend our money on, but Indya is resolute.  The bridge must be built and she huffs and puffs that she will find a way.  The only way forward is to take it right out of your pockets.  That's her go-to move and she's a one-trick pony.

Quid Pro Quo?

The news that wasn't news last week was Councilwoman Lynne Fugate bragging she had been "enthusiastically" endorsed by Mayor Indya Kincannon.  Well of course she was.  That was the closure to the deal made when Fugate voted to raise property taxes by 40%.  Once Fugate did that, the fix was in for Kincannon's support.

Fugate, speaking before the Center City Republican Club, made the statement to the effect that the "mayor raises taxes every four years" in the city.  First of all, the mayor doesn't have a vote in raising the property tax; the city council does.  It was Lynne Fugate who voted to raise the property tax 40%, although it was certainly at Kincannon's bidding.  It also begs one really big question:  Why does a government 1/3 the size of that of Knox County have to raise property taxes every four years when the county hasn't raised them in 25 years?  The answer is as clear as a sunny spring day.  The county is better run, better managed and not afflicted with the squander-spending of the city.  When nailed about having jacked up property taxes 40% and having raised the mortgages and rents of working people, all Kincannon and Fugate can mumble is something about "affordable housing."  So, you raised the rents and mortgages of working families to build subsidized housing inside the city, at the expense of existing neighborhoods.  Kincannon's endorsement might as well be that of Bozo the Clown.  I'll go ahead and predict the next endorsement for Follow-the-Leader Fugate: Bozo's mamma, former Mayor Madeline Rogero.

Liberal Definitions... Really?

Theotis Robinson recently had an column in the daily paper regarding the origin of "woke." I've frequently said and will say it again, if the Knoxville News-Sentinel was not allowed to write about food or race, it would come inside a fortune cookie.  In his column, Robinson insists Governor Ron DeSantis has "twisted" the definition of the word "woke." Really?  Citing "a race and culture reporter for ABC news" as his source, Robinson goes on a dizzying merry-go-round ride of silliness in trying to prove DeSantis twisted the meaning of wokeness.  If anyone in this country has abused, twisted, and debased the actual meaning of words in this country, it is Robinson's friends on the Left.  In fact, the Left tries to cancel people from work and life for not adhering to their recycled definitions of words.  The Left changes the meaning of words and language so quickly even they have trouble keeping up.  For the Left, it's not a word game; instead, it's an effort to remold society into something more to their liking.  Robinson cites Frederick Douglass and Dr. Martin Luther King as two people who he thinks were "woke."  Yet both were absolute in their conviction and desire to see a society that was colorblind, which is anathema to the Left today.  They hate the notion of someone rising due to the content of their character, rather than the color of their skin.  Which is what the new decision by the U. S. Supreme Court has just done.

Citing a news reporter for the corporate media as an expert on the meaning of "woke" is like picking one of the Seven Dwarfs as an expert on mining.  Actually, the Seven Dwarfs were miners so they probably would know what they were talking about.

Thank You, SCOTUS

The decision by the U. S. Supreme Court took a bold step to realizing the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King and Frederick Douglass for a society that is colorblind and insists that the American Dream is for every American – ALL Americans. The very notion a person can be limited because of his/her background and skin color is racist in itself.  The case of Students of Fair Admissions v. Harvard University and the University of North Carolina, for all Americans, especially Asian-Americans.  Asian-Americans have found their own opportunities blocked, all in the name of diversity.  Interesting how in the past 40 years none of us ever heard the corporate media cite the fact the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race.  Yet it was the same mainstream media which tried to ignore the brutal and vicious assaults against Asian-Americans throughout the country, precisely because it didn't fit their own narrative (the attackers weren't white).

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 never stopped universities and colleges from denying entry to those minorities who weren't favored.  That proves the notion that if one group of people can be favored, it means there are others that are unfavored.  That has always been true in every totalitarian regime on earth.  The Nazis openly unfavored the mentally challenged, gypsies, gay people, and of course, Jews.

The discrimination was so blatant and noticeable that the Princeton Review, "a company dedicated to college prep and test-taking strategies," counseled Asian-American high school students to avoid providing colleges and universities photographs of themselves when applying for admission.  So, too did the Princeton Review advise Asian-American high schoolers not to answer any questions about their ethnic background, as well as not writing essays about their cultures.  You'd think the Left in this country, if they indeed worried about the rights of minorities, would be all over that.  Nope.  Nada.  Nothing.  The Left didn't give a hoot about Asian-Americans and the discrimination against them.  Nor will you hear anything about it now.  The corporate media is busy trying to put every Asian face it can find right now in front of a TV camera to divert attention from a very real problem.  Woke has nothing to do with justice for anyone, except for those it favors at the moment.  The woke Left's idea of justice isn't for all and it isn't equal.

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