Monday, October 31, 2011
The Halloween line
The line is open. A final few words:
* CAIN'S COMMENTS: After first disavowing all knowledge of any complaints, Herman Cain has now developed an alibi that there might have been one baseless complaint. His tale is at variance with a human resources officer interviewed by Politico. Fox News is giving him the sympathetic platform. Forget that, after saying he knew nothing of any settlement, that he's now discussing details of one.
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Environment Ozark Society sues to stop gas drilling in national forest
Federal agencies haven't adequately considered impact on endangered species, roadless areas and wild and scenic rivers, the suit says. It says they particularly have failed to consider the fallout from hydraulic fracturing wells.
The suit asks for a preliminary injunction against further exploration until the suit can be tried.
The suit was filed because of fear that gas companies are on the verge of an explosion of hydraulic fracturing to produce gas in the northern reaches of the national forest.
A 2005 plan, which came with an environmental impact statement, said the Forest Service anticipated 10 to 15 wells in the forest. However, more than 40 have been drilled, said Ross Noland, attorney for the Ozark Society. But these are conventional gas wells, drilled south of the Arkansas River outside the Fayetteville shale zone. In fracking, water and chemicals are injected at high pressure to release gas from shale zones, a process that produces waste byproducts with a potential for pollution.
The immediate concern is work on exploratory drilling that could lead to massive fracking to the north. A 2008 Bureau of Land Management report said the forest could "support" 1,700 wells. A 2010 supplemental information report by federal agencies cleared the way for sale of leases and exploratory drilling in the northern parts of the forest in the shale zone. Noland said the Ozark Society will contend this supplemental statement didn't constitute a full environmental impact statement, as federal law requires. Public comment wasn't solicited or taken, for example.
Here's the full complaint and also a supporting brief. The case was assigned to Judge Billy Roy Wilson. A news release follows:
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Presidential politics Herman Cain's latest problem — improper campaign spending
Herman Cain is a clown. The Republicans who are trying to blame his problems on liberals don't get it. He's the Democrats' dream candidate.
SEX UPDATE: Herman Cain's firm denial of on-the-job sexual harassment — accompanied by press criticism that Politico never named his accuser — has already been buffeted by news that Politico DID name one of the accusers to Cain in seeking comment from him unsuccessfuly. Oh.
Also, NBC says it has confirmed that one woman received a cash settlement over her complaint against Cain. Surprisingly, NBC has not identified the woman. Don't quite get that. It's going to all get hung out eventually.
GOD UPDATE: In nationally televised speech, Herman Cain sings "He Looked Beyond My Faults."
ARKIE ANGLE: Mary Ose, who once headed personnel for the National Restaurant Association but has retired to Arkansas, figures in the reporting on who-knew-what-when about complaints/investigations of Herman Cain.
RIGHTWING UPDATE: Conservative commentators play the race card in defense of Cain. Facts? They don't need them, on the harassment complaint or the campaign spending. You may NOT speak ill of a Tea Partyer.
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North Little Rock Tea Party opposes NLR sales tax increase
A group calling itself the Arkansas Tea Party has issued a news release opposing the penny sales tax increase on the ballot in North Little Rock Nov. 8.
Too much fat, particularly in the economic development realm, and not enough discussion or information about specifics, a Tea Party statement says.
Putting aside the question of whether this statement represents one or 100 or 1,000 people — and putting aside that it's from the Tea Party, generally enough for a reflexive contrary opinion on my part — I confess that the statement raises some valid points.
This has been a hurryup, under-discussed affair — by design. It probably doesn't matter. North Little Rock, though a blue collar town, has always been friendly to the regressive sales tax. They like the mayor, too. If he says it's good, most people tend to think it's good. But giving even a good mayor a $20 million checking account for economic development, with no promise on how it's to be spent or meaningful oversight? This makes the Little Rock chamber of commerce controlled economic development slush fund look like a model of inclusive, responsible governance.
Mayor Pat Hays might buy some land for a future state fair site. Or he might buy some for an office park, doing with tax money what private enterprise should do. Or he might parcel it out to developer friends to build a parking deck for a hotel in competition with private operators who paid their own way. Who knows? Voters don't, and that's a problem. The State Fair relocation idea — apart from being a net zero for the county as a whole — is most likely a pipe dream unless the federal government suddenly steps up with $100 million to build the new facilities that would be required. The land is the least of the cost. There will also be highway connections to consider.
Tea Party finds an acorn, but, as in Little Rock, some obvious flaws don't necessarily dictate defeat of the measure with money for some worthy uses — police, fire, streets. Which is what Mayor Hays — and Mayor Stodola before him — is counting on.
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Arkansas Culture and Characters 'Animal House' star to lead Hot Springs parade
To borrow a phrase: "I anticipate a deeply religious experience."
Tim Matheson, the actor who played Otter, the Delta house Romeo in the legendary "Animal House," will be celebrity grand marshal of the March 17 St. Patrick's Day Parade in Hot Springs. The world's shortest parade will be on a Saturday this year, so the crowd should be bigger than ever. Matheson is currently starring in CW's "Hart of Dixie," playing a doctor in a Southern town.
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Arkansas Politics Scott Ford connects 99 percenters with Rwandan genocide
Here the citation is from the widely read Balloon Juice.
Some of Ford's remarks from coverage by The City Wire in Fort Smith:
Ford compared the “We are the 99%” Occupy protest slogan to the turmoil that existed surrounding Rwanda’s 1994 genocide. There, he pointed out, was where 90% of the poorest looked upon the 10%, “who were wealthy enough to own cows,” and said “that we the 90% being the bravest people we know are so poor, and the 10% are so rich, they must be cheating. How can they be making more money than us? They’re less than us,” Ford said.Ford continued: “And from there it went to ‘you (the 10%) are subhuman.’ Then, the political leadership and the wife of the (Rwandan) President embraced it. They gathered their children together and held seminars for how to use a machete. From that point, it went from, ‘you are subhuman’ to ‘you are cockroaches and need to be killed.’”
Balloon Juice comments:
This comparison is outright absurd. The sloganeering leading up to and during the genocide in Rwanda ultimately was about ethnic cleansing. Occupy Wall Street is about income inequality. The two have absolutely nothing to do with one another. This sort of rhetoric is desperate and irresponsible.
A local reader who sent the Balloon Juice link comments further and more sharply:
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Economy Bombs stimulate economy; bridges don't
Good column by Paul Krugman on the "weaponized Keynesians." They are the hypocritical Republicans who say federal spending on bridge, road, school and other construction doesn't create jobs, but spending federal money on airplanes, bombs and weapon systems does.
BY THE WAY: The D-G today picked up a Washington Post story on Social Security (an opinion piece against Social Security masquerading as analysis) that's drawn a bunch of criticism, including from Krugman. Also jumping the Post, among others, Daily Howler.
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Law Prosecutor wants Searcy County sheriff removed
KARK reports that Prosecutor Cody Hiland of Conway will seek to remove Kenney Cassell from office as Searcy County sheriff for a misdemeanor federal conviction in 1979 for possession of stolen cornish hens. Cassell, like Hiland, a Republican, admits his past and notes that he disclosed it to voters when he ran. Hiland said the Arkansas Supreme Court case law is clear; that a conviction of this nature requires removal from office.
I think Hiland is right. Small-time theft (campaign signs in one case) has been held a disqualification by the Supreme Court. Absent a pardon or other clearing of a record, a conviction is a conviction, no matter the age.
This raises again the issue of whether Republican state Rep. Josh Johnston of Rosebud, who reportedly was convicted in 1995 on a hot check charge, will seek re-election and whether Republican officials will object if he does. The report on his past came after his first election. I got a no-comment from the Republican Party on that question last week.
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Arkansas Politics Arkansas highway bond debt goes on forever
If I read this Democrat-Gazette story this morning correctly, it means that Arkansas voters are going to be asked Nov. 8 to approve borrowing money that — at least in some cases — will redo road repairs that taxpayers haven't finished paying for from the last highway bond election.
This gives you another view of the touted "efficiency" of using bonds for road repairs, as opposed to paying as you go. Bonds, with the necessary interest, increase the cost of repairs. Those 1997 bonds aren't paid off yet. We're fortunate currently that interest rates are at historic lows.
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Sunday, October 30, 2011
Employees accused Herman Cain of misconduct UPDATE
Start leading the polls and scrutiny increases. Tonight, it's Politico with story:
During Herman Cain’s tenure as the head of the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s, at least two female employees complained to colleagues and senior association officials about inappropriate behavior by Cain, ultimately leaving their jobs at the trade group, multiple sources confirm to POLITICO.
Cain fans need not worry. Unwanted advances to employees didn't keep Clarence Thomas off the U.S. Supreme Court.
UPDATE: Cain denial. He's a victim of a liberal conspiracy. Uh huh. You think the oppo researchers who dug this up were Democrats? Right.
UPDATE II: Monday morning, Cain met press and continued his denials. Settlement? What settlement?
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Over to you
Here's an open line. Was it a beautiful weekend, or what?
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Health Care American health care: Spending more for less
I spoke yesterday of the holes in the theory, much beloved by Republican politicians, of American exceptionalism.
Is it exceptional to spend far more money than any other country on health care (35 percent more at more than $8,000 per person than the next closest country) and have less by way of good health to show for it?
This fact should be taught in kindergarten and you'd think even the densest would understand it by now. But apparently not, judging by the political discourse.
A useful reminder today in a New York Times op-ed by Ezekiel Emanuel, which included these eye-opening nuggets about our spending:
France has the fifth largest economy in the world, with a gross domestic product of nearly $2.6 trillion. The United States spends on health care alone what the 65 million people of France spend on everything: education, defense, the environment, scientific research, vacations, food, housing, cars, clothes and health care. In other words, our health care spending is the fifth largest economy in the world.Or compare it to the second largest economy in the world, China. China’s G.D.P. is $5.9 trillion (compared to America’s $14.6 trillion). So the United States, with a population a quarter of the size of China’s, spends just on health care slightly less than half of what China spends on everything.
Results?
Almost no matter how we measure it — whether by life expectancy or by survival for specific diseases like asthma, heart disease or some cancers; by the rate of medical errors; or simply by satisfaction with health services — the United States is actually doing worse than a number of countries, like France and Germany, that spend considerably less.
Exceptional indeed.
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Sunday morning mishmash
* NOT SO SILENT IN THE SHALE: There is a good story on people in New York agitating against shale gas exploration dangers. Interesting that, in New York, the environment seems a more popular political play than the instinctive Arkansas politician play to blindly support the gas companies and oppose any effort to fully regulate them or extract a reasonable tariff for their severance of an unrenewable resource.
* IDES OF MARCH: Anybody seen the new George Clooney political movie? With time to kill yesterday, I saw it. I liked it right up until the abrupt ending.
* THE CORPORATIONS' POLITICAL TAKEOVER: Speaking of nasty politics (and it's pretty nasty stuff in "Ides of March," I noticed that the Democrat-Gazette picked up the NYT article on the big-money groups that will be aiding and abetting Republican candidacies in the fall — American Crossroads, Americans for Progress, the American Action Network. They helped in Arkansas in 2008 and are already on the ground here now, using Koch and other billionaire money to build the cause for Republican candidates. (Though none dare suggest this is coordinated in any way — wink, nudge.) But it's worth a click to the NYT link, which has some more information, particularly a useful graphic on the groups.
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Saturday, October 29, 2011
Another Saturday night ...
... and I got nothing else to say. You?
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Arkansas Media Panned: Ft. Smith paper's coverage of Whirlpool
Columbia Journalism Review, in its The Audit feature on business journalism, gives a stinging review of the Fort Smith Times-Record coverage of the news last week that Whirlpool would be closing its refrigerator factory in Fort Smith, putting 1,000 people out of work.
Whirlpool is laying off more than a thousand employees in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and shipping the work to Mexico and two plants in the U.S.So how does the local paper, the Southwest Times Record, cover the exit of one of its largest employers? With stories that read like they were written by Whirlpool’s PR department.
The lead of the paper's first story began, not with the closure, but Whirlpool's supposed efforts to "ease the transition" for people about to be unemployed. No worker quoted. Mostly a regurgitation of the Whirlpool news release.
It was breaking news, of course, but that’s no excuse here, when other outlets wrote far better stories. And this later story, which leads the paper’s page one today, isn’t any better. It gets around to quoting newly fired workers, but they’re awfully positive about their newfound circumstances:While the news of the plant’s closure upset or discouraged some workers, he sees this as an opportunity to pull together.“Sometimes (change) opens the door for other opportunities, to grow and pull together as a family … . A lot of people to me are all about self. Communities have to pull together to make things work,” Thompson said. “I’m a Christian guy and I believe God knows what he’s doing, and with things happening like they’re happening, it’s (an opportunity) for America to grow stronger.”
CJR credits The City Wire, the on-line news site in Fort Smith, with much better coverage, hours earlier. It also credits better coverage from the Democrat-Gazette, which found unhappy workers (imagine that!) and delved into the broader economic impact.
This is a good opportunity to mention that public television offered Fort Smith a hint about the future last night on its Need to Know program. The picture isn't pretty. The PBS show reported on the impact of the North American Free Trade Agreement and used as an example Evansville, Ind., once the refrigerator capital of America. How has it fared since Whirlpool closed its refrigerator plant there? The plant still sits empty. See the segment below:
Watch Manufacturing jobs on PBS. See more from Need To Know.
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