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July 26, 2006

Moyers is misleading voters

I just received a letter that outlines the real record of Mike Moyers with regard to term-limits.

Knox County Law Director and would-be Chancellor Mike Moyers has recently complained to the News-Sentinel that a flier prepared by supporters of term limits and bearing his name as a "term-limited politician" is "outright misleading." Moyers understands perfectly well why his name is included on that list.

Voters will certainly recall that term limits were extended to all other county offices except judges by more than 70% of voters in 1994. What voters may not recall is that Moyers personally drafted a charter amendment to remove those term limits from his office of law director when he penned an indefensible slate of proposals for the county’s Charter Review Committee in 2004.

Two amendments Moyers proposed then, that commission and school board candidates should be allowed to run for these county offices on the day they move into Knox County, were debated in the media. When voters learned that the two proposals were completely without precedent in federal, state, and other county governments and were instead Moyers’ attempt to impact a county school board race, they defeated both amendments. Unfortunately, a third one of Moyers’ proposed amendments, that term limits should be lifted from his office of law director, received no such public airing and was enacted absent any debate.

How did Moyers affect this seeming reversal in voter support for term limits? He simply garbled the ballot text to propose that "the Knox County Law Director shall be subject to the term limits provisions of this Charter to the same extent as any Constitutional officer of Knox County Government."

As Moyers anticipated, a majority of voters did not realize that the extent to which Knox County’s constitutional officers were subject to term limits is that they were not subject to them at all, at least per the state Attorney General opinion then standing. As Moyers also anticipated, a majority of voters did not realize that the Knox County Law Director’s office is not a constitutional office, either. Had they realized it is not, voters would have questioned why we would want to treat it as such by exempting it from term limits.

In light of Knox County voters’ clear support for term limits in their vote of 1994, there is only one reasonable explanation for 70% of voters then lifting term limits from just the law director’s office in August of 2004. These voters were intentionally duped by Moyers, who did, indeed, act in the spirit of a "term-limited politician."

Now, in the matter of Mike Moyers’ bid for Division III Chancellor, chagrined voters will want to cast their votes for his more transparent opponent, Jim Andrews.

Tamara G. Shepherd
Knoxville

Emphasis mine.

It's also worth noting that Mike Moyers is misleading the voters in another way. He's claiming that he "led the defense of the charter while his opponent sat on the sideline". Two things occur to me: a) Weaver ruled against the defense so if you're not lying, then how exactly is this something positive and b) Where's the evidence that he did anything to help the defense? What evidence did he enter for the defense? Does anyone here have a copy of the court record?

Posted by Paul Witt at 04:57 PM

July 08, 2006

free tattoos!

Over at KnoxViews we have this rant from Rikki. Brilliant!

How would Lincoln feel about George W. Bush being a Republican? How would Eisenhower feel about Donald Rumsfeld heading the military? Would Teddy Roosevelt waste two cents worth of lead on either of those snivelling fucks? Why are current-tense Americans cowards?

Partisanship is the only thing that keeps theives in power. Today's Democrat Party has less in common with Andrew Jackson than Star-bellied Sneetches have in common with Sneetches. Most of this country is too insipid to notice what rights they have and what rights they've sold to Dick Cheney for a dime on the dollar. Look at the Ann Coulter thread: more activity in a day than we've seen in who knows how long.

The original Andrew Jackson is dead. He thinks nothing. You who measure everything by membership in either of the two easiest clubs to join are the problem. Go fuck your cousins like men of that era were prone to do and see if the rapture comes. Leave the thinking to crows.

By the way, Ann Coulter is not a spokesman for the Republican party; he's a spokesman for the corporatist media that wants you fixated on whether there is a star on your belly. There is. They burned it in real slow. Do you see it?

Posted by Paul Witt at 07:28 PM