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GALLATIN, Tenn. - It was a position held by a democrat for 25 years, but now the 6th District Congressional seat is up for grabs. On Thursday night, candidates Diane Black and Brett Carter faced off in their first debate where things got heated, at times even hostile. They are both fighting to get a hold of the 6th district after 13-term democrat Bart Gordon announced he will not be running for re-election this year. That decision came in part after backlash from his constituents to a "yes" vote for President Obama's health care reform plan earlier this year. On...

One of the best political ads I've ever watched

COLUMBUS, Ind. (WISH) - Engine-maker Cummins was the site of a federal announcement from the Department of Energy on Monday. The Columbus-based company is receiving nearly $54 million to develop more fuel efficient passenger cars and heavy duty vehicles. "The American automobile and truck industry has been a backbone of American industry and we need to continue to have it as a major foundation in America,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu. “Revitalizing this industry requires change and requires innovation and Cummins represents the best of all that." The money comes from the $787 billion stimulus package. Indiana is...

COOKEVILLE -- Henry Fincher made it official Wednesday. After weeks of mulling a run for Congress, Fincher says he has decided against it. The Democrat from Cookeville, who represents the 42nd District in the Tennessee General Assembly, says there are too many things to consider in a bid for Congress. "My family and my clients and my law practice are depending on me. It's too important," Fincher told the Herald-Citizen. "If I just basically took off to go run for Congress, it wouldn't be right for the district or for the Upper Cumberland." Candidates for the 6th Congressional District have...

Abstract: Supporters of Proposition 8 in California have been subjected to harassment, intimidation, vandalism, racial scapegoating, blacklisting, loss of employment, economic hardships, angry protests, violence, at least one death threat, and gross expressions of anti-religious bigotry. Arguments for same-sex marriage are based fundamentally on the idea that limiting marriage to the union of husband and wife is a form of bigotry, irrational prejudice, and even hatred against homosexual persons. As this ideology seeps into the culture more generally, individuals and institutions that support marriage as the union of husband and wife risk paying a price for that belief in many...

http://www.wsmv.com/news/21288749/detail.html

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Channel 4 got an inside look Tuesday morning at the apartment where Steve McNair and his girlfriend were found dead Saturday. Reporter Sara Dorsey said the Lea Avenue apartment did not look like the scene of a violent struggle, apart from blood stains and some holes in the wall. With the help of computer-generated graphics, Channel 4 showed on Tuesday a first-hand glimpse at what the inside of the apartment looks like. Dorsey accessed the apartment through the same front door that police said Wayne Neely entered on Saturday afternoon and found McNair and Sahel Kazemi shot...

Shift in House Leadership Key to Victories The state's oldest and largest pro-life organization closed the legislative session with an impressive win on a long sought priority: removal of preferential treatment for Planned Parenthood, the state's largest promoter and provider of abortion services. By strong bi-partisan majorities of 25-7 in the state senate and 69-22 in the state House, legislators took action to remove language first placed into law during the early 1970's which specifically named abortion provider Planned Parenthood in coordinating family planning services in the state. In addition to removing the clause, legislators enacted language which mandates the...

An e-mail featuring a picture of two cartoon eyeballs set against a black background and meant to depict President Obama landed a Republican Tennessee state Senate aide in hot water, but not on the unemployment line. Sherri Goforth, a legislative aide to Republican state Sen. Diane Black, was reprimanded -- but not fired -- for sending the image, which featured a succession of presidents in dignified and stately positions until the final picture of Obama. Goforth, who is white, was issued a verbal and written rebuke for sending the e-mail from a statehouse account on May 28. Goforth called it...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Gov. Phil Bredesen is expressing doubt that Tennessee can afford the financial demands from General Motors to select its Spring Hill plant to build a new small car. The Democratic governor said Thursday that it became clear in meetings with GM officials this week that the automaker wants a large cash payment from Tennessee to pick Spring Hill. The other sites competing for the work are in Orion, Mich., and Janesville, Wis. Tennessee's incentive packages are usually tilted toward long-term tax incentives, training and infrastructure improvements. Bredesen says the state doesn't have "a lot of spare money...

MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- Some drunks got out of hand near Beale Street in Memphis, but instead of barflies it was birds intoxicated from eating fermented fruit. The Health Department investigated this week after receiving calls about dead and floundering birds, cedar waxwings to be exact. The birds were crashing into buildings in the Peabody Place area. An investigator told The Commercial Appeal he traced the problem to berries from nearby holly trees. Recent freezes ruptured berry cells, allowing the wild yeast to convert sugars into alcohol. The birds apparently got tipsy from consuming the fermented berries. Health officials said they...

The U.S. military is prepared to shoot down a North Korean missile or rocket if President Obama should give the order, the head of the U.S. Pacific Command said Thursday. "If a missile leaves the launch pad we'll be prepared to respond upon direction of the president," Adm. Timothy Keating told ABC News. North Korea announced earlier this week that it was preparing to shoot a communication satellite into orbit as part of it space program. The U.S., South Korea and other neighboring countries believe the launch may be a cover for a missile test-fire, saying the action would trigger...

Pity poor Joe Biden. His "there's still a 30 percent chance we're going to get it wrong" quote is put straight to President Barack Obama during the White House press conference just now and his boss seemed to want to say: "Vice-President Who?" As reporters started giggling, Obama came close to conceding that Biden was indeed a joke. "You know, I don't remember exactly what Joe was referring to, not surprisingly." The President went on to say that "I think what Joe may have been suggesting, although I wouldn't ascribe any numerical percentage to any of this, is that given...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — While he was strapped onto a prison gurney awaiting execution, inmate Steve Henley said he hoped for peace for the family of the couple he was convicted of killing. And Henley proclaimed, as he had since 1985, that he wasn't guilty of murdering Fred and Edna Stafford and setting their home on fire. Henley was put to death by lethal injection early Wednesday after exhausting all legal appeals a few of hours before the execution. "I'd like to say I hope this gives Fred and Edna's family some peace," Henley said in his last statement. "From my...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Susan McCullen spotted a treasure buried in a bin and smashed in with items tossed as trash. "I saw just the edge of the gold," said McCullen. "It was sort of mid-depth in, and I reached in and bent down to look and saw it was flat enough to pull it out, and I saw the frame and the matting, and I said, 'Oh good, original art.'" Online research revealed the painting is an original 1907 watercolor by New Orleans artist Ellsworth Woodward. "He and his older brother William were very instrumental in the arts and crafts...

Republican Mitt Romney is laying the groundwork for a possible White House campaign in 2012, hiring a team of staff members and consultants with money from a fundraising committee he established with the ostensible purpose of supporting other GOP candidates. The former Massachusetts governor has raised $2.1 million for his Free and Strong America political action committee. But only 12 percent of the money has been spent distributing checks to Romney's fellow Republicans around the country. Instead, the largest chunk of the money has gone to support Romney's political ambitions, paying for salaries and consulting fees to over a half-dozen...

http://www.newschannel5.com/Global/story.asp?S=9267340&nav=menu374_2

The Pennsylvania Democrat who has sued Sen. Barack Obama demanding he prove his American citizenship – and therefore qualification to run for president – has confirmed he has a recording of a telephone call from the senator's paternal grandmother confirming his birth in Kenya. The issue of Obama's birthplace, which he states is Honolulu in 1961, has been raised enough times that his campaign website has posted an image purporting to be of his "Certification of Live Birth" from Hawaii. But Philip J. Berg, a former deputy attorney general for Pennsylvania, told the Michael Savage talk radio program tonight that...

Barack Obama once told press that his mother’s death at age 53 was the worst experience of his life. He said, “The biggest mistake I made was not being at my mother’s bedside when she died.” He went on to say, “She was in Hawaii in a hospital, and we didn’t know how fast it was going to take, and I didn’t get there in time.”

WASHINGTON — Republican presidential candidate John McCain on Wednesday floated the prospect of picking a running mate who supports abortion rights and cited former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge as someone worth considering. “I think that the pro-life position is one of the important aspects or fundamentals of the Republican Party,” McCain said in an interview with The Weekly Standard. “And also I feel that — and I’m not trying to equivocate here — that Americans want us to work together,” McCain added. “You know, Tom Ridge is one of the great leaders and he happens to be pro-choice. And I...