Well, if Dick Cheney could head up the search committee that suggested himself for VP.....

after Big Jim had loaned his wife $1 million cash on the Nantucket property.

(link...)

KNS conveniently forgot to report the financial obligation Ann has to Big Jim which was subrogated last week to a $2.7 million loan on the Nantucket property from Home Federal (wonder who got to inspect that collateral before the loan?)so obviously the big mortgage to Big Jim hasn't yet been repaid. It's all out there at (link...). Not real hard to find even with a dial up modem.

Not to mention all of the guarantys and necessary loan collateral requests for various commercial local real estate developers in and around Knoxville. It's one thing to pick winners and losers on the private side with a big wallet, when you hold public office, regardless of the size of the wallet, the selection of who get in on the deals and who stays on the sidelines is a textbook example for bad government, bad politics, and wholesale lack of ethics. But who cares, the KNS won't report it, won't investigate it, they'll be slinging 25,000 papers to the Pilot c-stores to give away with those cups of coffee, donuts, cold beer, cigarettes, and lottery tickets each and every Friday. Reach on down for the Tennessean until the KNS can't ignore it and then cancel your KNS subscription.

Keep digging.

You will turn up Brad Martin and the rest of the gang.

so fishy -- hard to believe that Bill is clean on this. At very best, giving him benefit of any doubt, he and his staff were just incredibly clueless as to how bad it would look.

I'm not sure how TN blind trust system works, but i'd guess you are assumed to still own an asset until the trustee notifies you it has been sold. Sad that Bill and his staff failed to see the ethics issues coming coming and were not prepared to answer whether JLL had been sold.

even if it had been sold, Bill should have stayed totally out of the procurement process -- not even making suggestions -- just to avoid the appearance of impropriety. Report is not clear on whether he was personally involved in any way, but having his chief of staff and special asst involved so deeply sure is suspicious.

questionable ethics and questionable procurement practices. I hope the reporters stay on this story.

is a farce.

Who thinks he did his own investing anyway? It’s likely whoever handled his investments before, does now, thus that outfit would know prior connections and history.

You'd think this kind of stuff would be what drives Conservatives crazy, but.., but,but.., BENGHAZI!

Republican Speakers of state House and Senate call for probe...

(link...)