• A group of California billionaires and political insiders, calling themselves the “Think Long Committee,” want to place a $10-billion tax increase on the state’s 2012 ballot to fund public education and local governments. California, of course, is where the anti-tax movement got its start, notably with the Prop 13 measure enacted in 1978. With local communities cutting back on police and fire protection and school budgets cut to the bone, maybe people are starting to realize that shit needs to be paid for. As goes California, so goes the nation.
• Auto sales surged in November, with fuel efficient vehicles leading the way.
• An attempt to override the governor of New Hampshire’s veto of right-to-work legislation has failed to get the required 2/3 majority.
• The recall of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is full steam ahead, with 300,000 signatures collected in just 12 days. That’s more than half the required number of signatures.
• I hate to call this “good” news because the story is so sad, but it also shows that there’s still some compassion out there. Sheriff’s deputies and movers in Atlanta have refused a judge’s order to evict a 103-year-old woman and her 83-year-old daughter from their home of more than 50 years.
• Two U.S. governors are asking the DEA to reclassify marijuana as a drug with accepted medical uses.
• U.S. private business hires surged in November, the largest monthly gain since December 2010.
• Exodus International, the organization which started the whole “pray away the gay” movement, appears to be on the brink of financial ruin.
• Right-wing wackadoodle William Gheen’s ALIPAC is running out of money, and while he blames the “Obama dictatorship” for his anemic fundraising, I like to think that most people just aren’t that crazy.
Good News, Local Edition:
• Local pastors and Metro Police have joined forces for a “Gift Cards For Guns” event next Saturday. A $25 Kroger gift card will be given for every gun turned in, and those turning in guns will remain anonymous.
• Occupy Nashville got some positive national attention, with MSNBC profiling the group’s unique ideological inclusiveness. Furthering that welcoming spirit: Occupy Nashville will host a statewide gathering of Tennessee’s many Occupy groups today.
Southern Beale 
Off topic. FYI Economic Fallout update on Alabama Immigration Law.
Second foreign auto worker hassled: Will Alabama immigration law cost state? (Christian Science Monitor Online 12/2/11)
Two weeks after a German auto executive, Detlev Hager, was arrested when he couldn’t immediately produce his driver’s license during a traffic stop, a Japanese worker at an Alabama Honda plant this week was ticketed (though not arrested) under the new law.
“Our state has many advantages over Alabama,” writes the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s editorial board. “We are the Show-Me State, not the ‘Show me your papers’ state.”
It would have been nice if Tennessee could have adopted up Missouri’s tactic, seeing that we have a vibrant auto manufacturing industry here. Unfortunately, we also have one of those Arizona-style “show me your papers” laws. So, FAIL.
I’m so hyped about the drop in the unemployment rate! Great numbers. At this rate, we’ll be back to full employment by 2020.
LOL. Fortunately, even a small rise in unemployment snowballs, so we don’t have to progress “at this rate.”
Just for the record: one of my training instructors today is from Nashville. His accent was like the warm blanket I got from you two visiting. Chicken soup for the cold hon. Five thousand years of Jewish moms can’t be wrong. 🙂