Posted on 11/11/2006 3:48:40 PM PST by tennmountainman
Sen. Trent Lott is being coy about whether he'll run for minority whip in the GOP leadership elections slated for Wednesday. But while Lott plays his cards close to his vest, his presumptive rival, Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., has already declared himself the winner.
(Excerpt) Read more at sunherald.com ...
Back during the Tenn Scare mess it was within Frist power to pull the plug. It was he and Fred who went to what was then HCFA to secure waivers and funding for Tenn Scare. He went each and every year to secure those funds. Lamar isn't far from the same Taxquist tree himself. Given the choices right now I'd put Sessions as either Minority Leader or Whip. We need someone without Poppy ties.
I could not agree more, but we will be fighting that Almighty Seniority "Rotate The Pork" system, that rewards survival skills, not governing skills.
He ain't got a prayer.
Then that answers one of mine.
Okay, if I am to opine about this intelligently, can anyone 'splain me the rules?
Because if we Freepers have to tell the Senate who to pick, because obviously the Republicans in America's House of Lords don't have a clue, let's get the rules down.
Do you have to actually BE a member of the Senate currently to be majority/minority leader?
Is seniority a factor?
Can any Lord nominate themselves?
Does anyone have a list of the Republican Lords that will be in the Senate in the new congress?
I'm lost here. Can you explain?
Yea I will as good as I can. Back in roughly 1994 in the early Clinton/Gore years Hillary needed a state to try out her Health Care plan on. Unfortunately we had a DEM governor who was willing to let us be it. It was called Tenn Care and was enacted on a limited basis to replace what was the Tennessee Medicaid System. Medicaid in Tennessee had some problems but simply needed some cuts and enforcement in the abuses.
A major two named Insurance Company both names beginning with the word Blue became a partner in it. But the problem was getting doctors to sign on. Blackmail and extortion was used along with full page scare adds in local papers. The doctors were told to sign on the the program or Big Blue would not let them see their other members which was from private and corporate policy holders.
To secure the funding for this the states U.S. Senators had to go to the U.S. Department of Health Care Fiance Administration to secure waivers and funding to turn the Medicaid funds over to HMO's. A shell organization overseen by the state called Tenn Care was born to disperse the funding.
Corruption became rampant. The HMO's took funding and the CEO's skipped leaving the taxpayers holding the bag etc. The other HMO's threatened every year if more funds were not given they would leave the system. This included Big Blue who held over 50% of the enrollment. Next came the election for a new governor. The Dem term limited and a RINO took his place named Don Sundquist better known to Freepers as Taxquist.
He was also a Hillary Care shill and tried several times to get a state income tax to pay for the states portion. He purposefully wrecked the budget several times. Look up threads on Tenn Care and Tennessee Tax revolt in here.
Again conditions grew worse and each year Frist and Thompson secured funding for the program. This is where Frist Big Idea for Medicare reform came from. He took a few pages out of Hillary Care.
At any point in his tenure a U.S. senator Frist could have ended the program by refusing to secure funding and telling the governor to revert to Medicaid.
Change and accountability did not come until the RINO Taxquist was term ;limited out and a Liberal {as he calls himself} Dem took his place. He was re-elected last Tuesday by a wide margin. The Liberal is 100% more conservative then Taxquist even pretended to be. The moral behind this? Sometimes there's worse things that can happen than loosing to a DEM. The RINO may win. Phil Bredesen isn't my idea of a conservative but he's far better than Taxquist whom Lamar Alexander shilled for on his state income tax threats.
Sorry it could not be explained any shorter than that.
Curious how that is.
It was the Democrats in the south that sought to tear this country apart during the civil war only the have the Republicans save it.
I feel for you. I watched my own San Diego get invaded with easterners and then illegals.
You're right.
Lott is a whimp.
I second that motion.
I'll give you a recent example. He appeared on CNN's Broken Government "special" (aka hit job on GOP) and one of the things he said was how upset he was that Bill Frist campaigned to replace Tom Dashel with Thune. His opinion, it was "unseemly" to try and unseat a member of an opposing party.
Yeah, I think all Lott had to do was help Jeffords continue to enable the New England mob's school milk racket. Something like that. In any event, hindsight on Jeffords is 20/20. It is a blessing at this point that that scumbag is gone from the GOP.
So true and the sad thing is Sundquist was conservative when he was in Congress, at least at first. His record as governor was OK the first term, but right after re-election and knowing he was term-limited, he spent the next 4 years trying to push a income tax through.
You are right, he did everything possible to punish the tax payers every year to try to get the income tax through. It took a democrat to fix the problem. It remains to be seen if he too will try to push an income tax through now that he is term limited.
**He's the best, IMO.
Articulate and likable.**
Just like Santorum. Santorum would have been great. But we have to look forward. Drats!
Well, maybe Santorum can be someone's running mate in '08!
I thought he was one of the more conservative ones, from a conservative state.
What happened?
Unless he creates a false crisis like Taxquist did I think we're safe on that. If Bredesen has any future political ambitions {congress or senate} he won't go there. Taxquist is so tainted he's even out of the Bush circle.
I hope President Bush will a nice job for him.
I have no idea, but you're right, he was a GOOD one.
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