Friday Burrito: Tennessee Two Steppin' in it

BEER MONEY: Joe Six Pack is so lucky to have a Tennessee Republican Party Spokesperson for a financial advisor.

Even though the stock market has lost 40 percent of its value since one year ago, as measured by the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the stock market at the end of yesterday was still up 397 percent from its close on Oct. 10, 1988, at 2,158, twenty years ago today. If you had invested $1,000 in a broad-based mutual fund on Oct.10, 1988, and the fund had merely followed the performance of the DJIA, you would have $3,970 today.

KURITA BURRITA: One day your contribution to the Tennessee Democratic Party will go toward winning elections. Until then....

Attorney James Bopp criticized Democrats for claiming "carte blanche authority" to choose nominees any way party bosses see fit. He said the party executive committee violated Kurita's constitutional rights by tossing out her 19-vote primary victory over Tim Barnes.

"They want to claim now that votes in a primary mean nothing," Bopp said. "Instead of all votes counting, none of the votes count. Elections are about fulfilling the will of the people. The will of the people is that Senator Kurita be the nominee of the Democratic Party. She had the fruits of her victory, and they have been ripped away from her."

GUILTY: of one of the most wasteful uses of tax payer money in Tennessee state history.

Several weeks ago, the commission derailed Crafton's initial plan to put the issue on the Nov. 4 ballot on a technicality. The Metro charter can be changed by a vote only once every two years, and the Nov. 4 election fell three days shy of that two-year limit. The special election will cost taxpayers $350,000 to $500,000. Crafton appealed the commission's initial decision in court and lost.