The Always On series highlights what we’d be talking about on the air if we had a daily show.

• And Then There Were Six: Republican environmental activist Dave Pelton dropped out of the Nashville mayor’s race. He’ll run for an at-large seat on the Metro Council instead. Plus Mayoral candidate and former Metro Law Director Karl Dean submitted his nominating petition to the Davidson County Election Commission and is the first candidate to officially qualify for the race.
• Nashville to get $3M to Fight Homelessness: The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is expected to announce today a $3 million grant to Metro and several local nonprofit agencies to help fund Mayor Bill Purcell’s 10-year “Strategic Plan to End Chronic Homelessness.” Good thing too ’cause homelessness? Worse than we thought.
• From My Cold Dead Hands… America’s gun nuts put one of their own in their sights and open fire. Are we about to encounter yet another culture war over gun ownership? Why is the NRA such a powerful part of American political culture. 4 million members? Can’t Democrats look to the other 296 million Americans who don’t need assault rifles for their private militias? I wonder if the founding fathers would’ve been so gung ho about the 2nd amendment in the first place if they knew where weaponry was headed. (Source: Politics As Usual)
• What is it with Tennessee and Monkeys? Tennessee State Senator Raymond Finney (R-Maryville) introduced Senate Resolution 17 to use the legislative process to get an answer to the question of whether the universe was created by a “Supreme Being.” The answer, according to Finney would come from state Education Commissioner Lana Seivers “in report form” no later than Jan. 15, 2008.
• Our Gin and Juice Jake Tapper picks up on the conversations facilitated by Starbucks via their coffee cups.
• No Way! Way!: John McCain announced he’ll run for President in 2008. But which McCain will we get, the “maverick” McCain or The Real McCain?
• Who’s Not Supporting the Troops Now? Officials at Walter Reed Medical Hospital Knew of Neglect. For years they simply ignored complaints that were voiced for years.
• Pulitizer Prize-winning historian Arthur Schlesinger died yesterday. He was best known for his books about the Kennedys. He once said that being liberal means: “Regarding man as neither brute nor angel” and criticized the Bush administration for shifting our foreign policy to preventive war. He said it has ,”Cast the US as judge, jury, and executioner and isolated the United States.”
• Olbermann Makes a Good Point. He brings the truth (.mp3) about the Gores’ energy usage.
• Hey! Has the Bush Administration done anything about carbon emissions yet? Oh, not yet. They’re still looking at the Science.
• Sure Wish That “Axis of Evil” Had Included Afghanistan The Bush administration based on intelligence estimates, accused North Korea of enriching uranium. That accusation, made in 2002, resulted in the US cutting off oil supplies and North Korea throwing out international inspectors, building up their plutonium arsenal and, ultimately, producing that first plutonium bomb. Now, American intelligence officials are admitting to doubts about how much progress the uranium enrichment program has actually made. Oh That Pesky Unreliable Intelligence.
• An Inconvenient Tooth Exactly which part of compassionate conservatism covers death by tooth decay? Seriously. If there’s a family where the earnings (from any earner) are minimum wage, which is typically not a living wage, and there are no benefits, how does rugged individualism help? If there’s a window of 5-10 years before living wages are even a possibility (as a result of night classes or on-the-job training), do we just say, “That’s how bootstrapping works. This family is building character!”?

This post was written by Liberadio(!)