Wednesday, July 13, 2011
We're over the hump
Posted by Max Brantley on Wed, Jul 13, 2011 at 5:07 PM
It's Wednesday. The line is open. Parting shots:
* JUST SAY NO TO FLOOD VICTIMS: How strict is the Republican discipline on spending? Strict enough that all Three Mouseketeers — Tim Griffin, Rick Crawford and Steve Womack — voted yesterday against extending authorization of the Flood Insurance program, legislation that would have provided grants to help flood victims and protection against insurance premium increases for flood victims. You might have heard that flooding did some damage in Arkansas, particularly in Crawford's district.
* CONVENIENCE STORE FIGHT: The convenience store owner shut down by the city at Wright Avenue and Battery has hit YouTube with a video featuring a neighbor supporting him.
* A MAN ON A MISSION: That would be Tim Griffin, quoted in Salon, along with other House freshmen who apparently think Mitch McConnell has caved on holding America hostage to their strangle-government (and sick people, poor people, etc.) initiative.
As Tim Griffin, a freshman from Arkansas, put it to me, "A lot of us feel that we're here on a mission, and the mission is now, and we're not that concerned about the political consequences." That mission — to throttle the role of the federal government in general and Obama's progressive initiatives specifically — may seem more like a kamikaze pursuit to some of the freshmen as the 2012 elections get closer and their constituents become increasingly impatient for government solutions. For now, however, they and their Tea Party backers constitute the most formidable power bloc on Capitol Hill.
Speaking of...
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Riverfest eve open line UPDATE
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Congress sinks to 10th grade level
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Flash — Tim Griffin exaggerates
May 22, 2012What a shock. U.S. Rep. Tim Griffin caught taking liberties with the truth again. /more/
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The afternoon line
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Tuesday topics
May 15, 2012Line is open. You go anything. /more/
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Even (some) Republicans get the equality message
May 12, 2012Still I wait by the phone for a call-back from U.S. Rep. Tim Griffin's office on where he stands on marriage equality — or even civil unions with other legal protections for couples of the same sex, if not the "M" word. /more/
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May 11, 2012It's done. Slow day. /more/
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Herb Rule, 2nd District candidate, supports marriage equality
May 11, 2012Herb Rule, the Little Rock Democrat running for Congress from the 2nd District, sends a statement in support of marriage equality. /more/
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Thursday line
May 10, 2012U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann has renounced her recently attained Swiss citizenship. /more/
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Retreat, hell
May 9, 2012It's still "no quarter" in the Republican Party's war on women, and Congressional Republicans from Arkansas, eager for commendation, aren't missing any licks. "Kick 'em while they're down, and they'll stay down longer," seems to be the idea. /more/
- More »
Comments (26)
Showing 1-26 of 26
Because I got over Britney Spears back when she was selling-out arenas lip-synching to tweens, I’m pondering America’s armed service troops churning out YouTube videos lip-synching to Britney Spears, like “Drop Dead Beautiful.”
What does it all MEAN, Razorbabies?
Now that DADT has bitten or is biting (pick your tense) the dust and sexual orientation is or is about to be eliminated as disqualifying one for volunteering to serve one’s country, one can but conclude these are spontaneous all-purpose recruitment videos.
Also the subversive Tokyo Rose equivalents of our generation, meant to undermine the “enemy.”
Heteronormative women with an urge to serve will sign up immediately after viewing, because where better to combine patriotism with landing a fit husband and ultimately a military pension?
Homonormative men with an urge to serve . . . same thing.
Win-win for the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.
(Plus, of course, win-win for Britney, who’s still at risk of becoming the white Whitney Houston except Whitney could sing brilliantly before Bobby and crack and that whole thing.)
“Shock and awe” has its military effectiveness, one supposes, in fighting the endless ongoing economy-draining industrial-military-complex-profiting War on Terror.
Yet what could possibly BE more terrifying and demoralizing to Middle East terrorists than in-your-face armed and dangerous trained U.S. military troops strutting their uninhibited sense of humor and irony in viral YouTube videos?
Because, you know, the internet is global and these things are viewed on computers and smartphones and tablets worldwide. Bedouins, even, are bedazzled.
Reassuring to know America is in safe hands. Particularly those at 1:28.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vi_2kwXKrKc…
Uncle Sam Wants YOU!
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Our 2nd District congress critter got prominent mention today from Andrew Leonard in a Salon article contending that the new McConnell gambit could be making default on the national debt even more likely:
"...it now seems to me that the chances of a real disaster are even higher than they were before the McConnell stunner. As Robert Draper's Sunday New York Times Magazine story profiling the House Republican freshman class suggests, many members of the newest crop of representatives do not seem to understand, or care, about the potential fallout from their actions.
"As Tim Griffin, a freshman from Arkansas, put it to me, 'A lot of us feel that we're here on a mission, and the mission is now, and we're not that concerned about the political consequences.' That mission -- to throttle the role of the federal government in general and Obama's progressive initiatives specifically -- may seem more like a kamikaze pursuit to some of the freshmen as the 2012 elections get closer and their constituents become increasingly impatient for government solutions. For now, however, they and their Tea Party backers constitute the most formidable power bloc on Capitol Hill."
http://www.salon.com/news/budget_showdown/…
"to increase the role of private markets in the management of flood insurance"....Oh, I get it, the Republicans do not want private markets to take over flood insurance just like they do not want private markets to take over health insurance. I have not read the bill yet,but I would bet the insurance lobby really swayed the Republicans to vote against this bill. Why take responsibility for providing flood insurance in flood prone areas when you can just keep relying on the public sector to do so. Seems like this is a good example of Republicans protecting the private market. Then again, maybe I am not seeing this right.
A future tea party political sign maker?
http://pic.epicfail.com/wp-content/uploads…
Meanwhile, as Griffin sings his cruel gospel of promoting billionaires and starving the needy, Bush-man over at the Fed has his finger on the debt creation button to make ready more liquidity to the world's banking community of billionaires and millionaires should their yachts and private jets need more retrofitting:
"Bernanke: Fed Would Supply More Stimulus if Needed
By The Associated Press
7/13/2011 10:51:14 AM
WASHINGTON - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Wednesday that the central bank is prepared to provide additional stimulus if the current economic lull persists.
Delivering his twice-a-year economic report to Congress, Bernanke laid out three options the central bank would consider.
Bernanke said the Fed could launch another round of Treasury bond buying, the third such effort since 2009. It could cut the interest paid to banks on the reserves they hold as a way to encourage them to lend more.
http://www.arkansasbusiness.com/article.as…
Other NWA news:
Director of Eureka Springs Advertising & Promotion Commission, filed for bankruptcy June 16...
Maloney and his wife, Beverly, claimed $632,233 in mostly business debts in their Chapter 7 petition. They claim monthly income of $300 and monthly expenses of $6,618.
Maloney served as mayor of Cave Springs from 1994 to 1998. He formed Maloney Marketing Group advertising agency and Beartooth Studios recording studio in 1993, according to his website, BearToothRecording.com.
http://www.arkansasbusiness.com/article.as…
.
The ADG has an interesting story in their bidness section on Ark's weekly salaries:
We're 47th in the nation. Not one of Ark's 75 counties had a weekly average wage above the national average of $971.
The only area to come close was Camden in Calhoun County, best in the state with
$885 week.
Why Camden in Calhoun County? Once again eLwood's maxium of big government spending holds true:
"The highest average weekly wage was $885 in Calhoun County, home of Highland Industrial Park in East Camden. The park includes defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin, Airjet General, General Dynamics and Raytheon Missile Systems."
Newton County has the lowest weekly wage in the state, $436. Need I say Newton County is SOLID REPUBLICAN.
http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2011/ju…
eLwood, perhaps government will move to bail out those bankrupted private endeavors in NWA. After all, the "free market" is what it's all about and by golly our government leaders are going to protect that principle at all costs.
The fan who caught Derek Jeter’s
home-run ball that gave him 3,000 career hits is getting help
paying student loans and possible tax bills from one of the New
York Yankees’ chief sponsors.
http://bloom.bg/na2XaJ
Before they died, my dad’s and mom’s holdings included a little Arkansas farm. And I’m guessing the friendly folk at Arkansas Farm Bureau (where Stanley Reed’s no longer an officer or director) still don’t know they’ve been dead for several years and that the farm’s long-since been sold.
I say that, because the AFB’s magazine, “Front Porch,” still shows up in the mailbox. (I’m not complaining; it’s a good little publication and I enjoy reading it.)
Anyway, the magazine’s July-August issue is more interesting than most. The cover story is about Arkansas’s prisons and the big role agriculture plays in the lives of the state’s 16,000 inmates, beginning with their work on the “hoe squads” — the first job to which all inmates are assigned when they walk through the prison gates.
Dina Tyler of the Arkansas Dept. of Corrections (ADC) says there’s not another farming operation in the state that does as much and touches every single aspect of agriculture like the prisons do. And I can believe it after reading the Front Porch article.
Most of us Arkies — when thinking of the state’s prisons — usually think only of the Tucker and Cummins units where the really bad guys are held. But the ADC actually comprises 20 prisons that own thousands of acres of land used to grow cash crops and vegetable gardens, maintain orchards, provide pastures for the ADC’s cattle, etc.
As you probably know, the Cummins unit at Varner is the state’s oldest and largest penitentiary. It’s a medium/maximum-security unit housing 1,725 convicted felons, including a former friend who’ll spend the rest of his life there for killing his loving, drop-dead gorgeous wife for no reason other than that he was crazy as hell (don’t let get me started).
But back to Cummins: Beyond the cellblocks is a 17,500-acre farm where more than 1,000 inmates tend rice, cotton, and soybean fields; pasture land; greenhouses; vegetable gardens, and pecan groves. And horses, beef cows, dairy cows, laying hens, hogs, bee hives, tracking dogs, timber land and fish ponds.
Cummins also has its own creamery. And a full-scale meat-processing plant where each week inmates slaughter livestock (I can see you working there all the way from here, Richard) and process the meat for use in prison kitchens statewide.
Of interest to me as a taxpayer is the fact that the farm work at Cummins saves the state at least $6 million a year in food costs. Which helps a helluva lot when one considers that food produced at Cummins is distributed to ADC prisons statewide to help feed three meals a day, 365 days a year to 16,000 inmates and 2,500 officers.
http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/O…
So, why am I telling you all of this? Hell, I dunno. Except this IS a blog, ain’t it? Where we share ideas and jokes and political thoughts, and swap stories, too. That said, I just thought the Front Porch article was interesting stuff and figured some of y’all might think so, too, especially since it’s a slow night on this open line.
Thought, too, that you might like trying to eat the same kind of meal a Cummins inmate sits down to. One that includes a dish like, say, squash — a classic southern summer staple that makes any entrée better.
So, here’s the recipe for “Cummins Kitchen Fried Squash.” It’ll feed 2,000 inmates and officers. You can get out your calculator and figure how to reduce it to a single family recipe if you wanna:
1,000 lbs. of farm-fresh squash
1,800 farm-fresh eggs
10 lbs. salt
10 lbs. pepper
500 lbs. flour
100 lbs. cornmeal
60 gallons oil
Slice squash into ¼-inch thickness. Mix cornmeal, flour, salt and pepper. In a separate container, crack and whip eggs. Dip sliced squash in eggs; roll in flour and cornmeal mix. Drop squash in deep fryers, and fry until golden brown.
There. Delicious fried squash for 2,000 prisoners and attendants. That’s all there is to it. Yer welcome.
Durango, you're making me hungry! But, my diet plan doesn't allow fried squash after hours, so I guess I will just have to imagine it.
Durango--I found that "Front Porch" is available on the AFB website. So others can go there and read the entire article or maybe enjoy one of the other articles. Mountaingirl might enjoy the article about "Juicy Fruit"--I bet those recipes will suit her diet better.
http://www.arfb.com/news_information/front…
Very good call NVR! Thanks for the link. If I wasn't 1000 feet up in the middle of the woods, miles from a grocery store that is actually open right now, I might be tempted to whip one of those up.
But now you both have me thinking about food, so I will have to get creative with something I can find in the pantry.........odds are, it really won't be very creative and will probably just involve removing a top or a wrapper.
Yea Mountaingirl--those recipes got my mouth watering too. Right now I'd just settle for a slice of cold, sweet watermelon but don't have any here. I suppose I could run to the grocery story--not having the same limitations you have--but I'm not inclined to get out this late at night, even if the grocery store is less than a mile away.
LOL, mountaingirl! I don’t need any fried squash this time of night either, but I am hankerin' for scrambled eggs and pancakes. I’m half a mind to head out to IHOP raht now.
Deadgum it, NVR! If I’d known Front Porch was online, I coulda just posted the link like you did and saved myself some pixels! But it’s good to know it’s online. If AFB ever discovers that I shouldn’t be getting it and cancels me, I’ll just go online. As I’ve said many a time, you’re a very resourceful young lady.
Tap, you don’t need to go thankin’ mountaingirl, Sky Pilot, and me. We were just telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help us God!
Durango--didn't you know?--"everything is online". But there are still some of us who would prefer to hold it in our hands and read it so I won't tell AFB!
Watermellon, scrambled eggs and pancakes...........brilliant ideas. And all things I have here in the boonies! Off to indulge...............which I am sure I will regret in the morning.
Oh well......will worry about that tomorrow!
Norma, etal. If you haven't seen this already, start your morning with laughter and watch this. Stewart, with an assist from Seinfeld, was smokin' last night re Mrs. Dr. Bachmann. Too funny!
http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/…
Okay, Outlier. I tried yesterday surpressing this. I was successful. But the urge is irresistible. Overwhelming. I can hold back no longer.
When, yesterday, I noticed that the address of Dr. Bachmann's "clinic" was "8669" I thought, I know there are no "coincidences." Seeing it again just now on Jon Stewart's show brought it all rushing back.
Everything has a meaning and happens for a reason. And whether the bar is straight or gay, you can be 86'ed for 69'ing because of public sex ordinances.
But you would think, considering the good doctor's palpably prissy persona and its potentially pernicious pall on Michele's POTUS pursuit, he would take steps to minimize the inevitable ridicule and, like, move.
Or at least get some vocal coaching to lower his timbre and lose the lisp. And maybe some Ace bandages wrapped tightly around each wrist to, you know.
I have to wonder how much longer she's viable. Really. Because once people see you as an obvious clown and start laughing, it's like laughing in church: you can't stop and have to depart the pews.
Tho thad.
The Devil Wears Prada.
I'm not talking about the movie. I'm talking about the Pope. According to Michele Bachmann's church, the Pope is the Antichrist.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/07/14/mich…
I'm not surprised. The Ruby Slippers by Prada, favored by the Pope, suggest other fey and possibly Satanic proclivities too. As do the longstanding rumors of his boyfriend and private secretary there in the Vatican, Monsignor Georg Gänswein. But, hey: don't go by me.
Of course, when caught, Michele first denied her church's doctrine, then requested a formal separation from her long-standing church family.
Smart, that Michele.
But what's she going to about that husband, Prancer? Anybody's guess.
She can't leave HIM like she did her church because the Christian base doesn't like a currently divorcing candidate. And it's too late to butch him up because he's already the butt of nationwide jokes for mincing around on YouTube.
(Okay. "Butt" is not the best word choice in this context but my plate's full: I just don't have time.)
Plus, I couldn't put my finger on it at first, when I posted that YouTube link to Prancer a week ago today on last Thursday's Open Line, but something's been buzzing around in my brain and I finally realize what it is!
The Bachmanns remind me of several married couples I met whilst in The Rock!
I never said anything because I'm too much of a lady. But all I could think, under clouds of dread and foreboding over cocktails and canapés, was: "How long before he's arrested in some park or rest-stop sting and the whole job and marriage and house in the Heights or Chenal cover collapses?"
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