The mostly lowlights of what I missed on a long vacation:
• ABORTION RIGHTS: Missouri Rep. Todd Akin pulled a Fay Boozman by uttering the nonsense that women secrete a magical substance that prevents pregnancy in cases of real rape.
This didn't help the cause of women's medical rights as much as you might think, because other Republicans' condemnation of the remark tended to obscure the uglier truth: Republicans really do oppose all abortion — for rape, incest, grave health concerns for the mother, fetuses incapable of life outside the womb and even in the first minutes after intercourse by means of pills. Akin's lone defender, Mike Huckabee, who famously blocked Medicaid funding of an abortion for a retarded teen raped by her father, made clear that Akin's view was that of the Republican Party. Indeed, the party has moved past criminalizing abortion to ending ready access to contraception. Akin's gaffe also obscured Republican support, notably by vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan, for the notion that rape isn't really rape unless a woman gets the living crap whipped out of her, too.
•ARKANSAS AND THE RED TIDE: The Koch brothers-financed Americans for Prosperity rolled out its secretively financed attack mailings on Democratic candidates for Arkansas legislature.
The mailings are full of lies, chiefly that Democrats voted for highway tax increases, when they (and several key Republicans, who could have killed the idea in committee) only allowed a public vote. The Kochs hope to buy a legislative majority for the rich in the last holdout state of Dixie. Some $250,000 could do it, chump change for a billionaire (about the same as a $10 tip from the average Arkansas worker).
The good news is that Democrats have an organization built on Gov. Mike Beebe's fund-raising that is fighting back with ads associating the extremist Republicans with opposition to Beebe's popular and successful centrist governance. The Republicans respond with the black face of Barack Obama. As if he, and not Mike Beebe, is the dominant influence at the state Capitol.
•GOVERNMENT OUTSOURCING: The bombshell news unearthed by our Leslie Peacock that UAMS is considering a merger with St. Vincent Infirmary left me puzzled. Government going into business with a private enterprise, using tax money for venture capital? Why St. Vincent and not Baptist Health or the Arkansas Heart Hospital or someone else?
The combine got off to a bad start with a blatant violation of the Freedom of Information Act. Will this be a theme — government run like unaccountable private business?
Chancellor Dan Rahn of UAMS kept saying the combine could expand UAMS education. Not in women's health care. The state would join forces with an organization that won't perform abortions no matter the legitimate health circumstances, that won't tie a woman's tubes, that won't provide full preventive health coverage to female employees, which won't provide morning-after pharmaceutical intervention to rape victims. How can UAMS really ensure that the blended enterprise will serve ALL Arkansas interests and not just interests as defined by the religious leanings of St. Vincent? Would a former UAMS employee, if transferred, still have the same access to birth control pills or condoms at St. Vincent once enjoyed at UAMS? Will St. Vincent promise non-discrimination against sexual minorities, a written policy of the University of Arkansas system but NOT a tenet of Catholic authorities (who are putting up a significant roadblock to implementation of the Obamacare legislation Gov. Mike Beebe supports)? The same potential for church-based discrimination exists when UA finally provides domestic partner benefits for its employees.
Forget religion. If government is going to invest in private enterprise, why not a UA partnership with the University of Phoenix or a Highway Department combine with McGeorge Contracting?
Speaking of Dan Rahn, Mike Huckabee
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Former UAMS CFO reportedly out at new job
May 9, 2013Melony Goodhand, who left as chief financial officer and vice chancellor after nine years at UAMS, is apparently no longer chief operating officer at Bristol (Tenn.) Regional Medical Center, a job she took in early March. /more/
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Monday morning report: 'SWATting,' raw milk, guns, Huckabee and more
May 6, 2013Items of interest this Monday morning from all over: * SWATTING ARRIVES IN LITTLE ROCK: Channel 4 reports that the "SWATting" phenomenon — making false 911 reports to draw SWAT teams to home and businesses — was reported recently at a home on Pebble Beach in West Little Rock. /more/
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St. Vincent proposal: Run all clinics
May 3, 2013When it was first rumored last year that the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences might turn its hospital over to the Catholic-run St. Vincent Health Services, UAMS said no, no, no, that wasn't in the plan. /more/
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Feel like praying? Send Huck some bucks
May 2, 2013I joked yesterday about how Mike Huckabee ties a commercial pitch to just about every breaking news event, often soliciting Huck PAC contributions tailored to the latest Fox slant on President Obama. /more/
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UAMS hires new CFO
May 2, 2013: Chancellor Dan Rahn has told staff that he's hired Bill Bowes, a Connecticut college CFO, to be the UAMS CFO. /more/
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Morning report: Tim Griffin defends oil spiller; help for immigrants
April 4, 2013The morning report: * TINY TIM GRIFFIN: Of course he is an apologist for Exxon Mobil in the pipeline spill in Mayflower and he continues to exaggerate to the point of nearly criminal dishonesty about the jobs to be created by the Keystone XL pipeline he's shamelessly flogging for his financial patrons like the Koch brothers. /more/
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Barth: The DREAM remains alive
March 28, 2013Within days, we will know whether the Arkansas DREAM Act, the legislation focused on providing in-state college tuition to undocumented young people who have been educated in the state's high schools, has legs in this legislative session. /more/
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Questions about the UAMS-St. Vincent merger
March 26, 2013Leslie Newell Peacock's continued probing behind the scenes of work on a potential combination of UAMS and St. Vincent Infirmary continues to turn up cautionary remarks within UAMS. /more/
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Words for a new age at UAMS
March 21, 2013Why not dig into the Deepak Chopra playbook for the UAMS move to consolidate with St. Vincent Infirmary? /more/
- More »
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