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Because they are bought and paid for, either by the political forces within their own respective parties, who use both the carrot and the stick to ensure that they fall in line with their leadership's demands, or by the criminal elements that have influenced and sometimes controlled Tennessee's political leadership for the last half-century, the example of former governor Ray Blanton being but one of the more nortorious cases; the assassination attempt on McNairy county sheriff Buford *Walking Tall* Pusser in which his wife Pauline was murdered is another, somewhat better known.

It was after Pusser had held a Memphis press conference to announce a third motion picture continuing his story, the first of which told of his election and the ambush that nearly killed him, and the second, which described his hunt for those who had perpetrated the act, that he died in a single-car accident, and that final film was never made. That third, he had announced, would detail the levels at which the orders to silence him had been given, which reached directly into the Tennessee statehouse and as far away as Texas and to the haunts of the Boston mob families with whom the Tennessee pollies were doing business.

A couple of years back, the going bet was that the Tennessee *budget crisis* was a crowbar with which to introduce either a state lottery or casino gambling into Tennessee; but the nearby powerful Mississippi casino cartel, in Tunica and elsewhere, is not at all in favor of that idea, and have enlisted the support of both the legislators and others on their payrolls and such interesting allies as Tennessee churchmen and religious organizations to keep that from happening.

-archy-/-

Now that I understand that point, I gotta wonder why TN'ers are not MORE pissed off about this...and why nearly half the legislature is going for it...

You sounded a bit skeptical and supportive of an income tax. If you think we're not already pissed off and raising holy hell, just click here.