The Flyer does not endorse candidates, but we hope you’ll use the following thumbnail sketches for an assortment of county races as something of a guide. Assessor — SCS auditor Melvin Burgess, a Democrat, has proved his merit in two terms as a county commissioner, but the experienced Republican nominee Robert “Chip” Trouy has been […]
Posted inEditorial, Opinion
Political Shakeup in Shelby County Politics
Everybody knows by now that the last couple of weeks on the national and international scenes have been unusually crucial ones. In particular, the destructive wanderings of President Donald Trump over the landscapes of our traditional European allies, culminating in his obsequious bow of obedience to Kremlin dictator Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland, may already […]
Posted inEditorial, Opinion
Fighting the Power — Locally and in the Senate
One of the oldest shibboleths known to mankind — at least to the American branch of it — is that “you can’t fight City Hall.” It is also something of a metaphor for the whole of one’s relationship to governing authorities — meaning, you can’t fight the state, you can’t fight Congress, you can’t fight […]
Posted inEditorial, Opinion
Memphis City Council Hijinks?
The Memphis City Council is under attack from various disenchanted citizens regarding several alleged pro-incumbent referenda it voted onto the November ballot — one that would counter the council’s current two-term limit for members, another that would negate the Shelby County Election Commission’s plans for ranked choice voting (RCV) in the 2019 city election, and […]
Posted inEditorial, Opinion
Trump: No Longer “Leader of the Free World”
Typically, we use this space to consider matters of local importance — a term whose scope will stretch statewide, as cases dictate. But there is no mistaking that we belong to the national and world communities, as well, and from time to time, events in those larger spheres necessarily dominate in our consciousness. Such a […]
Posted inEditorial, Opinion
Shelby County Commission: A for Effort
There’s no doubt about it. The Shelby County Commission, in a current configuration that is about to expire because of the forthcoming August election, has taken bold steps to confront the established order of things. As of August, when a minimum of eight members of the 13-member body are due to be replaced because of […]
Posted inNews, The Fly-By
Hemp Harvest
State officials want to allow more farmers to grow industrial hemp in Tennessee. The Tennessee Department of Agriculture (TDA) re-opened the application process for licenses last week. Industrial hemp growers and processors can now apply through June 1st. Tennessee Hemp Industry Association Tennessee hemp farmers. “This is a proactive effort to assist Tennessee farmers who […]
Posted inEditorial, Opinion
Waffling Bill Haslam
In 2013, when Governor Bill Haslam was presented with the opportunity to accept upwards of $1 billion in federal funding for Medicaid expansion under the terms of the Affordable Care Act, then about to be activated nationwide, he thought about it for months. He dithered. There is no other, more polite word for what Tennessee’s […]
Posted inEditorial, Opinion
Strickland Cites Accomplishments, Plans at Downtown Rotary
Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland, who famously utilized the slogan, “Brilliant at the Basics,” as the hallmark phrase of his administration at its beginning, was deprived by a sequence of bad weather days from delivering a planned “State of the City” address to members of the Rotary Club of Memphis back in January. By this week, […]
Posted inEditorial, Opinion
On Saving IRV
President Trump’s act of political sabotage by his cavalier scuttling on Tuesday afternoon of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), more familiarly known as “the Iran Nuclear Deal,” is not the only ongoing case of official political vandalism. There is some in our own midst. There is, for example, the fact that important local […]
Posted inEditorial, Opinion
Shelby County Election: The Partisan Snare
The weekend imbroglio resulting from the publicizing of the involvement of a nominal Republican primary candidate for assessor with a racist and anti-Semitic hate group, and his subsequent shunning by the local GOP, illuminates several issues pertaining to our current system of electing public officials. The most obvious is the simple fact that we are […]
Posted inEditorial, Opinion
Tennessee’s Waffle House (and Senate)
The odyssey from his home state of Illinois to Tennessee of Travis Reinking, the armed assailant who killed four people at a Nashville-area Waffle House early Sunday morning is instructive, especially considering information given to the media from Nashville police chief Steve Anderson after a manhunt resulted in Reinking’s capture on Monday. As Anderson explained […]