It's amazing that the Knoxville News Sentinel got scooped again on this story of Arms bullying Tindell around.

The KNS runs these stories about the emails, and the KNS publishes the emails but doesn't do squat about the big story of how the emails were stolen, where they were delivered and how someone was threatened if they pursued it with the DA's office ?

Once again, the KNS got scooped by an alternative paper that comes out 1 time a week.

Speaking of the Sheriff's office, anybody recall the black binders that showed up on county commissioner's doorsteps during the justice center fracas some six-seven years ago?

It seems to me the matter of the stolen emails is private and beyond the reach of county commission. Only Chad has standing to pursue the matter, and if he opts to let it slide, so be it.

What's not a private matter is Tyler Harber's activities while on the county payroll. If the jobs he held were merely fronts behind which he was doing campaign work and political hits, that is against the law. County commission does have oversight responsibilities over the county executive. While Knox County may lack any type of special prosecutor law, the commission can ask the sheriff to investigate and report his findings. If Ragsdale was using county funds to pay a political operative, that is certainly a matter of interest to the body that controls the county budget. I find the MP editorial unconvincing and contrary to the basic principle of checks and balances.

It looks like the stolen emails are being used as a distraction from the more serious and public allegations. I thought Frank Cagle's column last week was a good one, pointing out what a shame it is that the promise of better cooperation among city and county is being squandered in service of personal ambitions and grudges.

Let's see, only half the emails are from members of the media. I still have lunch with those media folks occasionally. The others are long-time friends, since the days of Young Republicans in the early 90's. Some regularly come by my tailgate party at UT games.

I didn't want my emails published. I didn't think they should be. As Jimmy Duncan is fond of saying, even best friends and spouses sometimes have disagreements.

Let's examine this situation a bit further. Hornback partners up with Tyler Harber and Adam Groves, the day Hornback is elected he authorizes Groves and associates to take and copy the GOP computers, the media is alerted by GOP office staff, there is Republican outrage, I'm critical of Brian and the way things were handled, emails from my home computer are stolen by Harber or someone else, I get a call from the Mayor, Harber hides his computer and is eventually fired, investigation into my email theft begins, Tyler makes additional allegations and here we are. Seems to me this whole thing traces back to one serious error in judgment.

Brian's mad at some of things I said in my emails. I can understand. Some I shouldn't have said. I've apologized. As for more recent events, Brian has never discussed those with me and knows very little.

Randy, sorry to waste bandwidth on this trivial dispute.

I have NEVER shopped a story off the record to make a story appear in the media. Chad can say these are his friends. He maintains that is talking to his friends and they just happen to work for the news sentinel, citadel or a tabloid. Whatever.

I am getting ticked off about the insults of both Betty and Sandra and the code word tabloid to describe the Halls Shopper News. Here is an example of tabloid reporting in the KNS:

Ragsdale has denied the allegations involving him, blaming the controversy on "political bickering." He has noted that District Attorney General Randy Nichols has reviewed the allegations and chosen to take no action.

The Knox County Sheriff's Office has been investigating the allegations of computer theft for more than a year and says the investigation is still open.

Ragsdale was unavailable for comment Thursday, but his spokesman, Dwight Van de Vate, said the investigation belongs with the Sheriff's Office.

The Sheriff's Office "is an agency that is well equipped to handle such a task," said Van de Vate, a former ranking official in the department. "They have detectives, computer experts, people experienced in fact-finding and the gathering and handling of evidence. The commission, while it's their prerogative to conduct an investigation, doesn't have any of those resources and couldn't possibly be less equipped to handle something like this.

"At this point, the entire matter has become so hopelessly politicized that we don't see how the commission could possibly undertake any sort of meaningful investigation."

The Sheriff's Department has a file on this matter and it will never see the light of day unless the District Attorney wants it to. The KNS coverage of this story has been either non-existent or slanted. Not only did Metro Pulse scoop the KNS on the new Arms story about Chad Tindell the KNS hasn't even covered it as of Friday. Not even Victor Ashe got away with this type of strong arming, no pun intended.

The only person is this entire saga that has any ethics is Chad Tindell. You have to wonder how Knox GOP can have any loyalty when they so viciously turn on one of the best Chairman they ever had. This Ragsdale administration is more paranoid and vicious than the Sundquist administration. They have pulled this crap time and time again, but now it looks like someone will stand up to them.

http://www.knoxviews.com/node/2590

you might search the archives for more.

Not a single mention in the KNS about Mike Arms. I find that odd. I guess the new politics of Team Ragsdale is acceptable.

I notice that the Sentinel now has up on their site the affidavits that R. Neal also has up.

But the multi-million dollar paper with scores of employees put 'em up, what, 10 days later than this little ol' blog?

D'oh!!!

10 days is actually pretty good for the Sentinel. Most of the time they won't even print the story. You can bet they would have never put up the affidavits if R. Neal had not put them up on KnoxViews.

Still waiting for the News Sentinel to cover the Chad Tindell story from Monday. When the Chief of Staff for the County Mayor of the third largest city in the State blackmails extorts pressures threatens a private citizen that is a big story. Just not with the KNS. They just call it politics and don't print the story. There is a word for that. I think it might be collusion.

Have you seen this? Harber's resignation letter. It sounds like Harber and Ragsdale had an almost father son relationship.