Stockard on the Stump: Governor sends mixed message on …

Three days before Christmas, Gov. Bill Lee gave clemency to 16 people and granted parole eligibility to a host of folks who committed offenses in drug-free school zones.

The governor pardoned 13 people, commuted the sentences of three people and expedited the parole eligibility for 30 people using a change in state law.

It was a nice holiday present.

But it came just two days after the governor and Republican leaders across Tennessee pounced on President Biden and Immigration and Customs Enforcement for allowing asylum seekers to come to Tennessee temporarily before heading out to warmer climes.

“We’ve been informed by ICE that they plan to release single adult detainees into TN while they await court proceedings. This is irresponsible & a threat to the safety of Tennesseans,” Lee said in a Tuesday tweet.

Great lamentations followed by Republican U.S. Sens. Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty, et al. Then, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti chimed in with the claim that late Monday night the Lee administration learned of President Biden’s plan to “bus ICE detainees to Tennessee.” 

Skrmetti is trying to fight it with legal maneuvers, saying, “As a prosecutor, I saw first-hand the opportunities our porous border created for child sex traffickers. As Attorney General, I have seen how our porous border has allowed the opioid epidemic to metastasize into a fentanyl epidemic as Mexican factories turn Chinese chemicals into drugs that kill thousands of Americans. Every day that we fail to secure our border, we allow these terrible harms to continue.”

Gee, he managed to put Mexico and China into the same sentence to boost outrage across the state. No doubt, our discount stores will be sending all of their Chinese products back across seas immediately.

Meanwhile, Congress was fighting this week over whether to reinstate the Trump-era rule allowing the feds to expel migrants without asylum processing. The argument was holding up approval of a national spending bill to keep the government operating, which seems a little contradictory. How is the U.S. government going to monitor the Southern border at all, if spending shuts down? A skeleton crew will do, of course.

There’s another problem, though, with this grinding and gnashing of teeth: The governor knew weeks ago that this group of people would be coming through Tennessee before being sent across the nation to live with friends and families. He was notified by the Tennessee Immigration and Refugee Rights Coalition about asylum seekers but then acted this week as if Biden dropped word with little notice that he was shipping thousands of cartel members, fentanyl dealers and killers to Nashville when they’re really people who presented themselves at the border as political refugees, going through American protocol – and vetting – to escape persecution and likely death in their home countries. This is according to TIRRC and ICE.

Asked Thursday in a telephone press conference why he released that statement Tuesday to scare people, after being told weeks ago about the refugees who would be coming here, Lee refused to answer, saying he would only take questions about the clemency action.

Typically, the governor answers questions about a variety of topics, sometimes including obscure legislative action, when he holds a press conference.

Apparently, the matter of immigration was out of bounds Thursday even though he felt it important enough to take to Twitter Tuesday, followed by great upheaval from his legal minions, as we prepare to celebrate the birth of the world’s savior in a barn some 2,000 years ago.

Backing Briggs

A week after Tennessee Right to Life’s PAC blasted Sen. Richard Briggs, claiming he reneged on a promise to support the state’s ban on abortions, the Knoxville Republican received the backing of the Tennessee Medical Association.

The two groups appear to be ready to butt heads during the upcoming legislative session over Tennessee’s abortion law, which contains no exceptions for rape and incest and requires doctors to defend themselves against felony charges if they perform an abortion to save the life of a mother involved in a deadly pregnancy.

Reported by the Tennessee Journal this week, the Medical Association issued a statement saying, “Like many elected officials, Sen. Briggs has aligned his position with that of his constituents, Tennessans who recognize the unintended consequences of the state’s recently enacted abortion ‘trigger’ law and want it amended.”

The Medical Association contends that the law contains no legal exceptions for the life and health of the mother. Further, the group calls the “affirmative defense” portion of the law a “legal maneuver that undermines the legislative intent of the law,” putting doctors in the “unconscionable position” of deciding whether to save a person’s life or commit a felony.

Gov. Lee and other top Republicans say the abortion ban should stand, with the governor saying it does contain an exception to save the life of the mother.

Briggs, a doctor, has told the Tennessee Lookout repeatedly he believes the law needs to be clarified to remove physicians from a situation that forces them to violate either the law or their oath to save patients. 

He points out while he supported the legislation, he never said he opposed exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother. 

Look for Right to Life to spend the next session and four years tearing down Briggs’ reputation and his chance at another term.

Kick them out

State Rep. Chris Todd is sponsoring House Joint Resolution 5, which seeks to call an Article V convention for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution setting term limits for Congress.

These types of resolutions usually wind up on the cutting room floor because of the potential that wacko lawmakers would completely rewrite the Constitution and turn the nation into another Russia. Some appear ready to make Russia an ally.

The Madison County Republican must be mad at liberal Democratic U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen for taking every step possible to prosecute former President Donald Trump. After all, he’s the only Democrat left in Tennessee’s nine-member congressional delegation.

They found a way to send Congressman Jim Cooper packing by gerrymandering Davidson County so completely that its voters don’t count anymore. The result is three Republicans representing Nashville but in name only. 

A lot of people probably support Todd’s resolution, because too many people go to Congress and disappear, doing little for their constituents.

Some congressmen, however, should be term-limited for refusing to back the nation’s support for Ukraine in the war against Russia and Vladimir Putin. Some lawmakers sat on their hands in the House chamber Wednesday, ignoring the speech of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as he thanked the country for helping repel the invasion. He assured lawmakers, “Your money is not charity” but an “investment in the global security and democracy that we handle in the most responsible way.”

A $1.7 trillion national spending bill contains $1.8 billion for military aid and $45 billion in emergency assistance for Ukraine, which has proven to be a harder nut to crack than Putin dreamed.

If not for the United States, Ukraine would have been roadkill months ago. But then again, some members of our state’s congressional delegation support the consumption of roadkill.

Hide your money

State Sen. Frank Niceley, the Senate’s purported historian, wants to start a new state bank that will keep Tennessee from going under when the rest of the world collapses in a digital currency crash.

Niceley, a Strawberry Plains Republican, is concerned about the Great Reset, an economic recovery plan proposed by the World Economic Forum in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and a Federal Reserve plan to allow financial entities to buy assets directly, bypassing banks.

Niceley contends that fiat money, which is currency not backed by a commodity such as gold or silver, “never lasts.” He says America has managed to make this type of currency last since 1971, but he doesn’t expect it to end well.

Globalists, meanwhile, want the world to shift to central bank digital currency, Niceley says, enabling people to buy everything on their smartphones and do away with local banks, thus eliminating the dollar.

His legislation would create a state bank similar to North Dakota’s, which was started in 1919 and weathered all sorts of problems, including the Great Depression. His bill  would set up a depository where people could put gold and silver for safe keeping.

“That’s so if they do try to push this central bank digital currency, we would have a state bank, we could buy some silver and gold and issue our own currency,” Niceley says. “It’s something you hope never happens, but if it doesn’t happen, there’s no downside.”

Leave it to Niceley to come up with such a plan. Then again, if it were up to him, we would probably erect walls at the Tennessee state line.

Earlier this year, Niceley encouraged homeless people to follow the steps of Adolf Hitler, saying the former Nazi Germany leader who plunged the world into a great war, lived on the streets for awhile where he polished his oratory and learned how to “connect with the masses, and then went on to lead a life that’s got him into history books.”

Referring back to homeless people, he said, “They can come out of this, these homeless camps, and have a productive life or in Hitler’s case, a very unproductive life.”

My question is: Has Sen. Niceley seen some of Nashville’s homeless people, who are clearly mentally ill? Or is he just being Frank?

Second – and I happen to like Sen. Niceley – he recently produced this jewel when asked about the governor’s road construction proposal, which includes bringing in private entities to build roads and collect fees: “Mussolini liked those public-private partnerships. They called it fascism back then.” 

He was referring to the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini who partnered with Hitler in leading the WWII Axis powers, which should not be confused with former President George W. Bush’s Axis of Evil.

Good grief, I’ve forgotten where I’m going with this. But that’s what happens when you talk to Frank Niceley. He’ll make your head spin in wonder.

All I’m asking for this Christmas is some more Niceley words of wisdom during the next legislative session. He will deliver.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Sew up the holes in your long johns and keep ridin’ the storm out. “Last song people.”