Apparently things are heating up in the Sumner County races. Threatened by intelligent challengers who speak in full sentences about matters of substance rather than in talking point sound bites, both Diane Black and Debra Maggart have abruptly resigned from the League of Women Voters.

Shelley Ames, co-president of the Hendersonville league, contends that the group remains a nonpartisan political organization that encourages active participation in government. While the league doesn't endorse specific candidates or parties, Ames acknowledged that the organization does oppose particular pieces of legislation supported by Black and Maggart.

The legislators disagree with the league's opposition to: establishing a taxpayer bill of rights; requiring voter photo identification at the ballot box; and new language in the state constitution declaring, "Nothing in this Constitution secures or protects a right to abortion or requires the funding of an abortion."

Because there's nothing more critical to women voters than

1) bogus platitudes about "taxpayer's rights" in a state supported by the highly regressive sales tax, including a tax on food;

2) making the ballot box less accessible to voters, for example elderly nuns and

3) insuring that the government takes care of those weighty medical decisions so a little magnolia blossom need not trouble her mind with those big questions.

Well I'm sure they can find a nice discussion group at the Ivory and Tusk club. Or perhaps they're just chicken?

By now, everyone is familiar with the TNGOP Chair Robin Smith who stood boldly behind the traditional GOP fear-mongering hitpiece entitled Anti-Semites for Obama which sought to appeal to those well-known GOP allies, fear and bigotry, in asserting

The Tennessee Republican Party today joins a growing chorus of Americans concerned about the future of the nation of Israel, the only stable democracy in the Middle East, if Sen. Barack Hussein Obama is elected president of the United States.

The release, according to Knoxnews.com, "cites Obama's support from Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan and other controversial figures," and was so offensive that even John McCain repudiated it. Not one to be easily deterred, however,