The crowd was small at Saturday's annual legislative luncheon put on by the East Tennessee Society of Professional Journalists.

The News Sentinel had a small story that focused on the FOI, which is their want, but missed, in my opinion, what were the two biggest news pieces to come out of the event.

Their reporter, a fellow by the name of Jay Miller, who I'm not familiar with, did mention Richard Briggs statement that he doesn't believe the state should direct what doctors say to patients in any circumstances, including abortions. But the reporter failed to put it into context. I did that in a blog post here.

There was also absolutely no mention about Insure Tennessee about which the General Assembly is going into special session to debate on Feb. 2. Only one of the 10 lawmakers in attendance was unabashedly in support of it. But even those who weren't standing up waving flags for it, were still praising Gov. Bill Haslam for doing something. Some interesting things were said, as I relayed here.

KNS is likely to have more on the luncheon as the week unfolds. They had two columnists in attendance. And there were other matters that were interesting. My guess is that I can already tell you want Mark Harmon and Georgiana Vines will be writing about this week. But I won't spoil your reading. Although if I have some time tomorrow, I might throw out another blog post myself.

Knox County Tennessee
v.
Charles Michael Lowe; Delbert E. Morgan; Ray M. Mubarak; Tennessee Residential Services a partnership; Tennessee Real Estate Services a partnership

Employment and fraudulent salary and benefits. Defendants are awaiting trial in criminal court for collecting salaries and benefits they had not earned. Not less than $2,500 and not more than $10,000, trebled, for each false claim.

1/21/2015 188908-3

Related:

Criminal charges...

Motion for change of venue, inflammatory media coverage...

What: 13th Annual ChiliFest!
When: Saturday, February 7, 2015 - 4:00pm
Where: Stovall Family Life Center, beside First Church of the Nazarene, 1608 East Broadway, Maryville.

ChiliFest set for February 7
at Stovall Family Life Center

New contestants and previous winners will meet at CAPPE’s 13th annual ChiliFest on Saturday, February 7. Four ribbons and cash prizes will be awarded as three categories of chili – beef, other meats and vegetarian – compete for the judges’ decisions. The People’s Choice will be determined by votes from the tasting public.

Contestants must register and pay the $20 entry fee by February 4. Entry forms may be downloaded from www.saveitdontpaveit.org or requested from cappe@saveitdontpaveit.org .

This is a family friendly event. Admission is $7 at the door (free for children ten years of age and younger). With admission comes a taste of all entries and, if you are still hungry, a bowl of your favorite chili. Beverages, quesadillas and home-baked goodies will be available for purchase.

ChiliFest 2015 will be held from 4-7pm at the Stovall Family Life Center beside First Church of the Nazarene, 1608 East Broadway, Maryville.

Please contact Marian Fitzgerald (865 983-0298) or Jay Clark (931-308-7570) with any questions.

What: 6th District Knox Co Democratic Party Meeting
When: Tuesday, January 27, 2015 - 6:15pm
Where: Karns Public Library 7516 Oak Ridge Hywy

Guest Speaker will be Ms.Yvonne Marsh, CPA from the Marsh Group, speaking about Tennessee's Halls Tax.

Also on hand will be Linda Haney and Cameron Brooks, Chair and Vice Chair of the KCDP, who will speak about their experiences meeting the President at his recent visit to Knoxville.

for info: Janice Spoone (spoojh@comcast.net)

What: 3rd/4th District Democrats Meeting
When: Tuesday, January 27, 2015 - 6:00pm
Where: Bearden Branch Library, 100 Golf Club Road Knoxville TN 37919

Guest speaker is Finbarr Saunders, Knoxville City Councilman At-Large (Seat C)and former 4th District County Commissioner, speaking about the structure of Knox Co/City municipal government, and his experiences and insights into the issues faced by Knoxville.

for info: Chris Foell (foellmc@aol.com)

Josh Flory has announced on his twitter feed that his last day with the Sentinel will be Feb. 6. He'll be joining commercial real estate firm NAI on Feb. 9.

What: South Sector: Knoxville's 2015 One-Year Plan
When: Thursday, February 5, 2015 - 6:00pm
Where: Flenniken Landing Community Room

The one-year plan is the foundation for zoning of ALL property within the city limits.

Updated annually, the MPC is now accepting comments and answering questions about proposed changes to this plan.

Contribute your thoughts and concerns at the public meetings.

For more information, call Mike Brusseau at MPC, 215-2500

Download the 2014 One Year Plan here:
http://archive.knoxmpc.org/plans/oneyear.htm

Other City One-Year Plan meetings:

North, East and Central Sectors
February 11
New Harvest Park Community Center

West and Northwest Sectors
February 19
Middlebrook Piek United Methodist Church - Room 31

What: Democratic TV
When: Friday, Jan 23 @ 7:30PM
Where: Knoxville Community TV Channel
Guest: Representative Joe Armstrong
Topic: Insure Tennessee, local political news
Host: Bill Owen

Democratic TV can be seen live streaming on (link...) or on cable channels:

Charter: channel 6
Comcast: channel 12
Wow: channel 6
ATT U-verse: channel 99

I put together some information about where things stand regarding abortion in Tennessee on the 42 anniversary of Roe v. Wade. A bit of a round up before the session gets rolling.

One way to grow your business is to come up with a new product.

The other (and easier) is to execute better than your competitors. For 12+ years I've selected Dell systems for my projects and my personal PCs/laptops. Name brand, brand recognition and all that.

Dell used to have a reputation for quality and good support. Apparently, over the years, selling out to Wall Street has totally messed that up. We recently purchased a laptop for a new employee, and the "mouse button" in the lower right is sticking and inoperative.

So, after calling up support and going through the require 75-minute diagnostic (that Dell admits doesn't even test the mouse or trackpad), and determining it's not a software problem, their solution was to ship it back to them, they would have it about three weeks, and they would probably wipe the hard drive in the process. Because a button is sticking.

Let that sink in for a second.

Continued...

If you haven't been following coverage of the first of two rape trials of former Vanderbilt football players by The Tennesseans, you need to. Especially interesting is the twitter feed by reporter Tony Gonzalez from the courtroom. It's gruesome and horrible, and you'll want to scream at the audacity of the defense attorneys, but it's important.

The trial is in it's second week. The victim was on the stand today. It's a good thing I don't live in Nashville because I would have been at that courthouse giving that defense attorney a piece of my mind before it was over. It read like a bad parody. No indication yet as to when the prosecution will rest or if the young men will testify. Only two are being tried this time around. The trials have been separated. The others will be tried later.

This is the largest NASA Hubble Space Telescope image ever assembled, the High-Definition (69,536 x 22,230 pixel) Panoramic View of the Andromeda Galaxy.

Gigapixels of Andromeda (You Tube video)

Does Neyland stadium use LED lighting?

Looks like Mariners do a lot a lot of sustainability like things.

from Channel 5 in Seattle ...

The Seattle Mariners will announce tomorrow that Safeco Field will become Major League Baseball's (MLB) first LED lit field.

Hwang said going LED will cut the Mariners' lighting costs by 60 percent and says, under the team's current level of light usage, the LED bulbs can last 50 years or longer.

Mariners make MLB history as first LED lit field

Seattle Mariners sustainability

Come on down to Big Fatty's Restaurant, 5005 Kingston Pike TONITE, at 800pm, to watch #POTUS give 'em Hell! Good people, good food and great PBR drafts!

What: Public meeting on five year community development plan
When: Tuesday, January 27, 2015 - 5:30pm
Where: John T. O’Connor Center, 611 Winona St

City of Knoxville press release...

How should Knoxville allocate its federal grants in neighborhoods? For example, what are the best ways to fight blight, ensure decent housing and benefit lower-income families and communities? And what do communities see as their most pressing needs?

Continued...

The IRS now requires reporting of ACA Premium Tax Credits and Minimum Essential Coverage (MEC) for health insurance on the IRS 1040.

Page 2 of the 1040 form includes three new line items for ACA.

The Tax and Credits section now includes a line item (46) for Excess advance premium tax credit repayment. In addition, the Payments section now includes a line item (69) for Net premium tax credit.

The Excess advance premium tax credit repayment and the Net premium tax credit lines requires Form 8962, Premium Tax Credit (PTC). This is for people enrolled in a health plan offered through the ACA Marketplace.

Form 8962 (PTC) requires a 1095-A, Health Insurance Marketplace Statement. The 1095-A should be received by Marketplace participants by January 31, 2015.

If a participant/filer Advanced Payments of the Premium Tax Credits (APTC) is more than the calculated PTC, the participant/filer has excess APTC and must repay the excess, subject to certain limitations. If a participants PTC is more than the APTC, the participant/filer can reduce the tax payment or increase the refund by the difference.

Continued...

The TNGOP will make another run at school vouchers this session.

This time, the bill to track is SB0122 by Kelsey: School Vouchers - As introduced, enacts the "Tennessee Choice and Opportunity Scholarship Act."

SB0072 by Kelsey: As introduced, prohibits the state from operating a health insurance exchange, pursuant to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act; the prohibition is contingent on a certain disposition of King v. Burwell by the U.S. supreme court.

Basically, this law says that if the U.S. Supreme Court says the federal government cannot pay health insurance premium subsidies in states opting to not operate an exchange, then Tennessee will not be allowed to operate an exchange.

The bill says that individuals may then ignore the individual insurance mandates and employers would be excused from paying penalties for not offering insurance.

It further states that these "benefits" would "accrue to the citizens of this State if Tennessee does not operate a state insurance exchange."

Apparently, the ability to no longer receive a federal subsidy to help pay your insurance premiums is a "benefit" the TNGOP wishes to generously bestow upon the citizens of Tennessee.

Just Wow!
(link...)

Although, I have to say that my absolute favorite sermon by MLK is The Drum Major Instinct.

I've put together a rather lengthy piece that outlines the history of Tanco v. Haslam to date along with a bit of commentary. The idea was to put it in context for the state and the nation.

This isn't what I'd planned for my first blog post at pamstrickland.org, but I didn't want the historic nature of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision on Friday to grant cert to go without notice. Having done it over the weekend, there aren't comments from the players, but there's time for that. And I have to remember that my job isn't necessarily to repeat what others are doing, but to add to the conversation. Sometimes that may be adding quotes. Sometimes that may be looking at something from a different point of view.