Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam (R) said Tuesday that he’s in favor of discontinuing license plates that feature the Confederate flag.
A debate over the flag’s place in the American South (and the Republican Party) has raged in the days since a white gunman killed nine people Wednesday at a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina. The suspected gunman, 21-year-old Dylann Roof, appeared to pose with the flag in several photos before the shooting. South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) on Monday called on lawmakers to remove that flag from the grounds of the state capitol.
Haslam was asked about Confederate flag specialty license plates at an event for a Volkswagon supplier in Chattanooga, Tennessee, according to The Times Free Press.
The governor said he wasn’t aware of that some of the state’s license plates bore an image of the Confederate flag but he’d “be in favor of discontinuing it,” as quoted by the newspaper.
Haslam’s comments came as Democratic Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe moved Tuesday to remove the flag from state-issued license plates.
Looks like this is having a domino effect. Bout tricking time
But not on the Big Gulp cups at the Quick 'n Go…
The governor said he wasn’t aware of that some of the state’s license plates bore an image of the Confederate flag but he’d “be in favor of discontinuing it,” as quoted by the newspaper.
Bull !! Shit !!
The senate has just passed the initial vote to approve fast track.
Thought somebody at TPM might be interested.
Or not. Can’t possibly be as important as everything else.
"The most controversial provision of the TPP is the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) section, which strengthens existing ISDS procedures. ISDS first appeared in a bilateral trade agreement in 1959. According to The Economist, ISDS gives foreign firms a special right to apply to a secretive tribunal of highly paid corporate lawyers for compensation whenever the government passes a law to do things that hurt corporate profits — such things as discouraging smoking, protecting the environment or preventing a nuclear catastrophe.
Arbitrators are paid $600-700 an hour, giving them little incentive to dismiss cases; and the secretive nature of the arbitration process and the lack of any requirement to consider precedent gives wide scope for creative judgments.
To date, the highest ISDS award has been for $2.3 billion to Occidental Oil Company against the government of Ecuador over its termination of an oil-concession contract, this although the termination was apparently legal. Still in arbitration is a demand by Vattenfall, a Swedish utility that operates two nuclear plants in Germany, for compensation of €3.7 billion ($4.7 billion) under the ISDS clause of a treaty on energy investments, after the German government decided to shut down its nuclear power industry following the Fukushima disaster in Japan in 2011.
Under the TPP, however, even larger judgments can be anticipated, since the sort of “investment” it protects includes not just “the commitment of capital or other resources” but “the expectation of gain or profit.” That means the rights of corporations in other countries extend not just to their factories and other “capital” but to the profits they expect to receive there."
MAyBE REInce saID we neeD TO ADD faBric to OUR tENT to MAke it Much BIGGER? ElectION YEar and ALL…