• YouTube/Arkansas Business
• PITCHING FOR PIPELINE: Tom Cotton (left) and Tim Griffin

There has been no permanent loss of jobs at Welspun from the delay in the pipeline. Welspun has been paid for the pipe. What Griffin and Crawford offer now is the unsupported claim that if Welspun must sell the pipe for a second time to clear its yard of it (TransCanada has already paid for it) the "dumping" of this pipe will drive down pipe prices nationally with terrible effects for Welspun. Hard to swallow given that Welspun just announced an expansion for other types of pipe.

Anyway, the real point is that government forces in Nebraska are trying to take private property rights away from landowners to build this pipeline and Griffin and Crawford apparently think that's fine. I thought property rights mattered to Republicans. Not when there's oil to be shipped overseas, I guess. Don't hold your breath for any tough questioning of Tiny Tim from local press on this pipeline story, which is not nearly so simple as Tiny Tim wants you to believe. They also try to make you believe the pipeline will bring down gas prices. Wrong, which even supporters admit.

Here's an update from another aspect of the Keystone story.

And a dispatch today from groups fighting the pipeline:

• IN IRAQ DAYS: Tom Cotton would have arrested reporters.

Mother Jones does the honors today, remembering Cotton's antipathy to a free press.

In 2006, Tom Cotton, a twentysomething US Army lieutenant serving in Iraq, wrote an open letter calling for the prosecution and imprisonment of two of the New York Times' most prominent reporters, Eric Lichtblau and James Risen, who had just broken a major story about how the government was tracking terrorist financing. The letter, which also called for the prosecution of Bill Keller, the Times' then-executive editor, was initially published on the conservative blog PowerLine but soon went viral.

As Mother Jones note, Cotton became an instant right-wing celebrity, a celebrity he used to good advantage piling up hundreds of thousands of dollars in Club for Growth and eastern moneybag contributions for his campaign. There is, of course, more where that came from.

Not everyone lauded Cotton.

Outside experts are skeptical of the idea of prosecuting journalists for publishing secrets. "The espionage act has never been used against journalists," explains Jay Rosen, a journalism professor at New York University. "When you accuse investigative journalists of espionage, you are essentially saying that they're working for another power, or aiding the enemy. That is culture war tactics taken to an extreme."

Obviously, there were no prosecutions. Reporter Lichtblau commented:

The same First Amendment freedoms that allowed Lt. Cotton to put out his letter allowed us to publish our story on the SWIFT program, a decision that the newspaper's top editors did not make lightly. Our story clearly concerned a matter of great public interest that went to the heart of the debate over national security versus civil liberties, and there was no evidence at the time the story was published in 2006, or in the five years since, that it endangered American lives.

Even some critics of the Times weren't so impressed with Cotton.

Steven Aftergood, an expert in government secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, says he doesn't necessarily agree with the Times' decision to publish but that Cotton's legal judgment is lacking. "Should the Times have been indicted and prosecuted? Of course not," Aftergood said, laughing. "To believe in the free press means to allow for the exercise of editorial judgment. If you want to say people cannot choose to publish such information, then you don't believe in a free press."

I suspect Cotton likes his odds if someone were to run against him as an enemy of them lyin' newspapers.

• INTIMIDATION: People carrying this logo allegedly tried to discourage gas tax petitioners at the polls.

I reported earlier that the anti-tax group, operating publicly as Stop the Gas Tax AR, seemed bent on intimidation with a call on its website for reports of any place petition gatherers might be spotted. I speculated on what they might do with that information.

Nelson said people wearing or carrying Stop the Gas Tax Ar material had repeatedly gone to canvassers around the state — his group, Committee for a Fair Severance Tax had dispatched 125 to 130 — and told them they could not gather signatures at polling places and must leave. Petitioners, of course, may gather signatures as long as they don't encroach on a small neutral zone around each poll.

"Some of our people, not knowing any better, did leave," Nelson said. "Some of them said to go to hell." He said a woman named Felicia in Forrest City had scared canvassers into leaving by pulling a badge, identifying herself as a federal official and telling them she wanted them off the premises. She carried Stop the Gas Tax material, he said.

The campaign "expresses dismay" at the reports, Nelson said. He said it would pursue all possible remedies. He noted that impersonating a law officer, if that happened, could be a criminal offense.

I've asked a consultant for the campaign, organized under the name Arkansans for Jobs and Affordable Energy, and also Randy Zook, Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce head and chair of the committee, if they'd like to comment, but so far haven't heard back. The Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce is a leader in the campaign, with support from chambers in the shale zone, among others. It has raised and spent more than $1 million already, with most of the money coming from Stephens Production and Southwestern Energy.

UPDATE: Randy Zook called back. He said first, "This is serious." He added that it "gets old when he [Nelson] throws this stuff out without evidence. If he has evidence of it he should produce it forthwith and turn it over to authorities as soon as possible."

Zook said his group indeed had people all over Arkansas yesterday, both paid and volunteers. Had they in any way been encouraged to discourage others from lawful canvassing? "Absolutely not," he said. Zook said their instructions were to "distribute material, take note of any activity and that's it." He said efforts on the website and in instructions to take note of any activity had no ill intent. "It was just to give us feedback of the likelihood of success of the ventures and how much of this was going on."

I spoke this morning, too, with Don Zimmerman, head of the Arkansas Municipal League, which is working with Nelson on gathering signatures. Their efforts continue, he said.

The tax initiative, to raise the existing rate from 5 to 7 percent, would require almost 63,000 signatures to reach the November ballot. The group has until the first of July to gather them.

• BOTTOM FIVE: Tim Griffin brings up rear in level of his remarks.

Here's your complete ranking. Five Republicans are at the bottom, including Little Rock's own Republican congressman, Tim Griffin, whose remarks scored at at 8th-grade level, 430th among 435. Looks like John Boozman, at an 11.7 grade level, led the rest of the delegation in his use of the language.

• GUILT BY ASSOCIATION: Flyer erroneously says Occupy LR behind ethics drive. It's not.

A surreptitious effort has begun circulating in the Arkansas business community to encourage people not to sign petitions now circulating to improve Arkansas ethics law.

The business community HATES democracy. Thus they are urging people NOT to sign three voter initiatives — to increase the pitifully low severance tax, an effort to end the Oaklawn/Southland monopoly on casino gambling and, now, better government ethics.

The latest flyer tries to make people think the ethics proposal is the work of Occupy Little Rock, those grungy hippies recently evicted from a gravel parking lot in Little Rock, to the great relief of authoritarians everywhere.

The ethics initiative may be supported by the small band of OLR people (I hope it is), but it is the work of a Catholic High teacher, Paul Spencer, and friends and fellow good government travelers, including the likes of Dale Bumpers, John Paul Hammerschmidt, Jim Keet, Jim Argue and other similarly disreputable sorts who've also never worked a day in their lives.

Here's the flyer.

Naturally, it is unsigned. I wouldn't want to identify myself as author of such mendacity either. "Deeply entertwined with Occupy Little Rock"? It's a lie. Period. More baloney:

Supporters of this effort portray the goals of this reform as transparency and accountability in government. But, The Campaign Finance and Lobbying Reform Act of 2012 is more directed at limiting the influence of small business on Arkansas politics than improving the integrity of the political system of the state.

The US Supreme Court has ruled that restricting businesses’ ability to support political causes, in essence, restricts a corporation’s (and its employees’) ability to express themselves freely – in violation of the First Amendment of the US Constitution.

More lies. The proposal puts no limit on free expression. It does prohibit, as federal law does, direct corporate contributions to political candidates. Good suits may still spend individually and also spend independently as a corporation. The proposal does make a lawmaker wait two years before becoming a lobbyist. It does prohibit gifts to lawmakers, otherwise known as petty bribery.

Businesses hate this idea because they know how much they can buy for relatively small outlays. I asked the Markham Group, leading the anti-democracy effort on two other ballot initiatives, if this was their work. No, Robert McLarty said. I have questions in as well to the Arkansas and Little Rock chambers of commerce, the Poultry Federation and the National Federation of Independent Business, all likely suspects as enablers, if not the originators, of this slimy flyer. They like things just the way they are. And you need look no further than the corporate-controlled statute books of Arkansas to understand why.

Sign the petitions. Vote for better ethics.

PS — I'd be proud to have Occupy LR on my side. The chamber bullies? Not so much.

UPDATE: Randy Zook says the State Chamber is not involved "in any way." Jay Chesshir, of the Little Rock chamber, says he's "not aware of this." Marvin Childers said the source "IS not the Poultry Federation." Sylvester Smith of NFIB similarly denies knowledge.

I'll keep scouting for someone willing to stand up for the mailer. I mean, if it's a constitutional issue and all, why wouldn't they?

• CRYING FOUL: No fair to use facts against him, Rep. Ed Garner says.

Talk Business reports. The mailer says Garner is about $75,000 in arrears. (Say, didn't Sen. Joyce Elliott make Page one of the Democrat-Gazette recently for being $1,600 in arrears? Still time for some election-time Page One-ing of Ed Garner, right, in addition to those earlier smaller articles?)

I've reported these liens before, too. Garner has cried foul. It's not fair to use facts against a man so little accustomed to using them himself. (Remember his fanciful campaign to further cut the capital gains tax for rich people.)

Sanders actually pulled some punches. Left unplumbed is Garner's dubious use of his business, the Mama's Manna bakery, on which he owes so much in the way of unpaid taxes. Garner has claimed rent from state taxpayers for using his business as an office in his claims for expense reimbursements of $2,350 a month. He has also at times charged his campaign funds for rent ($600 a month) of the same space. Is it a triple dip when you claim reimbursement twice for a business on which you are not paying required taxes? Nicely played, Mr. Garner

Robocalling in behalf of state Supreme Court candidate Raymond Abramson, which I mentioned yesterday, prompted me to look at the last campaign finance reports to be filed before the election Tuesday between him and fellow Court of Appeals Judge Jo Hart.

• ABRAMSON

Hart, of Mountain View, has raised only $44,000, but she's spent $159,000, thanks to personal loans of $115,000.

Contributions on both sides come from all points on the partisan spectrum, though Abramson's business establishment preference seems clear. Hart has received a small Democratic Party contribution from the local county committee and a touch of union PAC money.

• HART

It's safe to say percentage vote results in this race won't track campaign contributions.

The Wall Street Journal today has a feature on the 4th District Republican primary race between Beth Anne Rankin and Tom Cotton (and also, incidentally, John Cowart). The article (pay wall) pitches the race as one between a candidate backed by Mike Huckabee (Rankin, a former employee of the ex-governor) and Cotton, a Club for Growth candidate (nearly $200,000 in funneled Club money last I looked).

Huckabee or Club for Growth, the anti-tax lobby heavily funded by Jackson T. Stephens Jr. of Little Rock? One of those devil-or-the-deep-blue-sea choices.

• GONE TO TEXAS: More favor Texas side, despite equal tax burden.

A legislative committee is reviewing the state tax structure — rates, breaks, exemptions and so forth.

Rep. Davy Carter, the chair, is undertaking this in good faith to produce a base of reasoned judgments about inequities in the system.

Hah! Good luck with that. The special pleaders didn't get their special treatment by accident. The Tea Party accepts no view of taxation except that it must be lower, particularly for those best able to pay. Nothing rational will come of all this.

Interesting details, nonetheless. It is a 'bagger article of faith that the income tax rate here is ruinous, particularly on corporations. Figures show that individuals account for more than six times the income tax burden that corporations pay — $2.6 billion to $423 million. I await an examination of how much income tax some of the big multinational corporations actually pay in Arkansas, if any, after the accounting tricks available to them under Arkansas law.

And here's an interesting tidbit:Texarkana, Ark., residents pay no income tax at all. They got an exemption in the 1970s because of the cry that it woud ruin the border town to have an income tax while Texas had none. That exemption costs Arkansas $20 million a year. The added 1-cent sales tax in Texarkana reaps $4 million — a $16 million annual subsidy by all taxpayers of Arkansas to Texarkana residents.

Has that tax break been beneficial? You tell me. More people still choose to live on the Texas side (37,104 to 30,222 in Arkansas, according to Census data.)

The Arkansas affiliate of Americans for Prosperity, the Koch brothers-financed lobby for low taxes, light regulation and other corporate conservative desires, is going all in to own the state senator from Benton County.

Teresa Oelke of Rogers, the paid leader of AFP in Arkansas, already had played a significant hand in the campaign of Bart Hester, challenging Rep. Tim Summers for an open Senate seat. Oelke's family, the Crosslands, have poured personal and corporate money — at least $37,000 — into the Hester campaign.

And now Oelke's AFP group has announced it will be purchasing an undisclosed amount of TV time hammering Summers for voting to send a sales tax increase and a diesel tax increase to voters, both for highway repair and construction if passed. The diesel tax election won't happen. Truckers, who'd initially backed the increase to pay for road work, said it couldn't pass, but they still scored a sales tax break included in the deal. In the Koch/Oelke world, the people should not be allowed to vote on charging truckers to fix roads they destroy or to choose to expand their four-lane system. See, if we'd just stop spending money on medical care and food for the poor, we'd have all the money we needed for highways.

For good measure, AFP likens Summers to Barack Obama (you know, the swarthy Muslim who lives in Washington). It's dishonest stuff, but you'd expect no less from AFP. The greatest thing of all is that this is issue advertising. It is not direct advocacy. Thus, thanks to inadequate disclosure laws, the public will play hell ever knowing exactly how much AFP spent, where they spent it and who provided the money. This is a nearly perfect world for the Kochs and the U.S. Supreme Court, with its elevation of corporation above human beings.

• Wikipedia
• MONEY LEAD: Joyce Elliott

Allen, a clear preference among the corporate community based on the identity of contributors, nonethless is significantly behind Elliott in fund-raising according to the 10-day pre-election finance report.

In the most recent reporting period (April 10-May 12), Elliott raised $34,935 to Allen's $9,885, putting her total for the race at $148,206 against his $85,013. He had $51,000 on hand to spend and she had $139,000.

Allen's major contributors included several corporate PACs (the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce among them) and Bruce Hawkins' lobbying firm. His supporters also included Irma Hunter Brown, whom Elliott defeated for the Senate seat. Elliott reported union PAC contributors, but her report was one of the most striking I've seen for women power. Dozens of women are listed as contributors, from $75 up. If anybody's seen a report with such a turnout of financial support from a broad swath of women giving individually, I'd be interested in seeing it.

Here's Allen's report.

Here's Elliott's report.

It will be interesting if there's a late infusion of money in this race, either directed to the candidates themselves or in independent expenditures. Late money won't be reported until after the election.

• CISSY RUCKER

Governor Mike Beebe has named Alicia "Cissy" Rucker of Little Rock to be the next Director of the Arkansas Department of Veterans Affairs.

"Cissy Rucker has a history of military leadership and a keen mind for organization," Governor Beebe said. "I’m grateful that she has agreed to postpone her retirement awhile longer to continue serving Arkansas and put this department on stronger footing."

Rucker, 62, spent 33 years in the Arkansas National Guard, retiring with the rank of Colonel. Her assigned duties included Airfield Commander, Surface Maintenance Manager, Maintenance Manager and State Public Affairs Officer. She is a member of the Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve Committee, as well the Women's International Helicopter Pilots Association.

Before taking the position, Rucker rescinded her state retirement status and will not receive retirement benefits while at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

As a former colleague of Cissy's at the Arkansas Gazette many decades ago and an admirer of her ascent in the military, I have some advice for any slackers who might still remain from the bog of management problems that led to the VA shakeup. Better straighten up and fly right.

Dan Froomkin at Huffington Post reports on an unearthed memo in which ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) handlers brief state legislative stooges on talking points to invoke should someone ask embarrassing questions about the corporate subsidies and dominance of the corporate legislation factory so beloved by Republican legislators.

The report demonstrates that the talking points you'll hear are mostly disinformation.

Among the responses recommended in the memo: "Since ALEC is a legislative organization our state legislators take the lead on proposing legislation and only the public sector votes to adopt legislation as ALEC policy."

But Lisa Graves, executive director of the Center for Media and Democracy, which published an exposé of ALEC last year, told HuffPost in an email that's not true. Documents uncovered by her group and by public interest group Common Cause clearly show "that numerous bills were introduced where the corporate lobbyist or special interest group rep took the lead on proposing legislation."

ALEC meetings, she said, "are designed to spoonfeed ALEC legislators industry-funded science and corporate-based 'studies' that advance the corporate agenda."

Common Cause is leading the fight on ALEC. It is also leading the fight on the end of democracy in the U.S. Senate, where 60 votes are essentially now required to do anything. Common Cause has filed a lawsuit today arguing that the filibuster rule is unconstitutional and violates "the core American principle of majority rule."

As promised, the Better Ethics Now Committee has a website up and running. But it's still in development. The donate portion is not yet hooked into an on-line pay link. But they are working on the fly.

Better Ethics is the committee formed to raise money to get signatures necessary to put the Regnat Populus 2012 ethics law initiative on the ballot. It would ban corporate contributions to political candidates, ending gift-giving to legislators and institute a two-year rule on legislators becoming lobbyists (it still wouldn't apply to people like U.S. Rep. Mike Ross who's already hit the door to the lobby before even walking through the congressional exit door.)

PS — If this measure passes — and let's hope — would it end corporate subsidized junkets for lawmakers. Wouldn't that amount to a gift to lawmakers, to take them on below-cost trips to be plied with food, drinks and cookie cutter legislation (thinking ALEC here).