The Vice-Chair of the Sumner County Democrats, Leonard Assante, wrote an opinion piece for the Gallatin Newspaper this past week, in which he criticized the media for not paying attention to State Sen. Diane Black, and the ties to Aegis Corporation, through her husband David Black.

Assante cites previous charges that Sen. Black should have declared Rule 13 (the same rule invoked by Sen. Wilder in regards to his hiring of Mexicans) when a budget containing contracts for her husbands company were brought forward.

In addition, Assante goes one step further and brings up the fact that Aegis, and David Black in particular, were responsible for the testing of WWE wrestlers, including Chris Benoit who, in a fit of "roid rage" killed himself and his family.

Take a look for yourself, I personally think Assante is overstepping it by bringing up the Benoit story, but the connection is at the very least interesting, if ultimately irrelevant to anything.

While there has been much debate over attempts to ease restrictions on open meetings laws, it appears that State Sen. Ray Finney (not to be confused with Lowe) has introduced a bill that would make it easier for the public to access information regarding State grants and awards over $5,000. He wants all of this information to be accessible via a search able online database, and there is one provision which says that the site should not be finalized until the public has had the chance to comment on its effectiveness.

Personally, I wish that more Government information was available publicly online. For many of us, going down to a public office during work hours simply isn't a viable option, and it isn't right that we should have to pay for access (or copies) of these documents, when they can be easily scanned and stored online at minimal costs to the state.

"If the name Bill Hobbs is attached to it, you'd better check the facts." - Me.

So seems to be the case in the battle over who loves veterans more, the Democrats or the Republicans. This stems from the Veterans day announcement by the State House and Senate Democratic Caucuses, that they would be introducing legislation, Helping Heroes Act of 2008, to create a new grant for veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan battles, to supplement their GI Bill. Bill Hobbs, who recently took a job as Communications Director for the TNGOP, was quick to respond that the Republicans offered a bill to do this earlier this year, and their bill was better.

Now, I realize I'm a little late to the game on this, but considering that the debate still rages on (at least in the comments over at VV), I figured I'd do the best I could in tackling the subject and trying figure out who is right and who is wrong.