Tuesday, October 07, 2008 - 12:59:21
The Republican formula embodied in the headline is going to get a workout in the final days of the campaign, if the message on Mike Huckabee's PAC website is any indication. And there's little doubt he's been comparing notes with McCain campaign leaders.
I've said before Huckabee would have been a sharper, tougher and smoother talking running mate than Sarah Palin. That is not to say he's more trustworthy.
Among the erroneous information in his call to arms for Christian soldiers is the assertion that Franklin Raines is "chief economic adviser" to Barack Obama. Fact checker says that's a wild exaggeration. Huck also says Obama "worked" with ACORN. Another bit of misinformation. His misinformation about Acorn's role in the current financial crisis is part of a wildly erroneous campaign theme that Republicans have been pushing for weeks. He misstates by a factor of 100 or more the fees Acorn has received for originating mortgages for low-income families and makes no reference to data that indicates the default rate on low-income mortgage programs has been better than that for the country as a whole.
But back to Huckpac. How do you stand up to the gun-grabbing atheist queers who support Obama? You send money to The Huckster, of course.
Continue Reading »
Tuesday, October 07, 2008 - 12:20:22
GW Bush's approval rating, according to Gallup, now stands at 25, a mere one point higher than Tricky Dick's and only three more than the lowest presidential approval rating in poll records (Truman's in 1952).
The internal numbers are more interesting. Approval among Dems -- 5 percent; among independents -- 19 percent; among Repubs -- a mind-boggling 55. What, somebody tell me, exactly do they approve of? Pre-emptive war? Economic disaster? Torture? Unconstitutional detention? Unconstitutional executive power? Lack of intellectual curiosity? Certitude in the face of overwhelming contrary evidence? Our low standing in the world? Our depleted military? The weak dollar? Please. What?
Tuesday, October 07, 2008 - 10:01:51
Another glowing resume entry for Miss Caribou.
Republican distaste for the law runs deeper than tax fiddling. I guess you know they are back to vote caging again. It's gotten so bad in Montana that even Republicans are complaining about removal of war heroes and current active military from voter rolls.
Tuesday, October 07, 2008 - 09:54:46
UAMS announces results of a study that show the state's effort to measure the
body mass index of public school kids has not led to an increase in taunting of fat kids. Oh, yes, they do still get teased a lot, school weight measurement or not. Girls more than boys.
Tuesday, October 07, 2008 - 09:20:20
The Arkansas Project stirred up a little action the other day by mentioning
Tim Griffin's opinion that at least two strong candidates were in waiting to oppose
Sen. Blanche Lincoln in 2010. Nominees besides Huck?
Tuesday, October 07, 2008 - 08:54:55
Campus newspapers at both
Arkansas State University, the Herald, and the
University of Arkansas at Fayetteville,
the Traveler, have endorsed the state lottery amendment. Now, if they can persuade students to vote.
Tuesday, October 07, 2008 - 08:47:37
Color from a Palin rally:
McCain had said that racially explosive attacks related to Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, are off limits. But Palin told New York Times columnist Bill Kristol in an interview published Monday: "I don't know why that association isn't discussed more."
Worse, Palin's routine attacks on the media have begun to spill into ugliness. In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric's questions for her "less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media." At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, "Sit down, boy."
And, further, from TPM:
So we have McCain today getting his crowd riled up asking who Barack Obama is and then apparently giving a wink and a nod when one member of the crowd screams out "terrorist."
And later we have Sarah Palin with the same mob racket, getting members of the crowd to yell out "kill him", though it's not clear whether the call for murder was for Bill Ayers or Barack Obama. It didn't seem to matter.
These are dangerous and sick people, McCain and Palin. Whatever it takes. Stop at nothing.
Comment from Greg Sargent at TPM on Palin's blaming media for her depiction:
Palin's ugly attacks, her non-stop lying, and her glaring buffoonery and incompetence are all the media's fault! It is pretty outrageous, this liberal media conspiracy to report accurately on what Palin says and does as she asks us to put her a heartbeat away from being steward of our troubled economy and controlling the most powerful military in human history.
And there's the irreverent Wonkette on the ugly Palin crowd in Florida:
Ignorant clown Sarah Palin is the laughing stock of the Entire World, which means her only remaining value to the McCain campaign is to yell racist crap at mouth-breathing old wingnuts, in white Florida suburbs, so that at least those people will possibly remember to go to the polls on November 4 … because otherwise the Negroes will make “Ebonics” be the National Anthem and require all white trash kids to listen to Hip Hop. Oh wait, too late on that last point.
Tuesday, October 07, 2008 - 08:28:28
Steve Arrison, the P.T. Barnum of Hot Springs promotion, has come up with another good gimmick. A recently unearthed photo of gangster Al Capone and his missus enjoying a little leisure time in the Spa will become a promotional postcard for the resort.
Continue Reading »
Tuesday, October 07, 2008 - 06:20:58
A new poll shows Obama up 6 in Ohio. Man. But the poll also shows many voters remain movable. Good news is that voting has begun in Ohio.
Get ready for the nastiest, most dishonest run of advertising and stump attacks ever. It will make the Swiftboating of a war hero by a country club layabout look like kindergarten play.
UPDATE: And here's a pile of more favorable poll data, including the significant negatives for Miss Caribou. I admit, all this happy talk makes me hugely nervous.
Tuesday, October 07, 2008 - 06:12:53
Editor's choice: A NY Times article today about the ill consequences of the grating practice of health care workers and others to talk to older people as if they were children. My father, a kind and gentle man, surprised us all by menacing a nurse with a cane because of her persistence in this kind of talk
The Times indicates there are ill health consequences in the demeaning practice. (I confess, it's fresh on my mind because of the "sweetie pie" address of a young server at a Little Rock restaurant this weekend to a mature woman in our party. I won't repeat the woman's threatened tart rejoinder to the server's cootchy-coo familiarity.)
Tuesday, October 07, 2008 - 06:06:12
Brummett takes a look at the big race for Senate in Conway. He won't let incumbent Republican
Sen. Gilbert Baker get away with acting as if only the
Joe White side plays bare-knuckle politics.
Monday, October 06, 2008 - 18:49:38
Right here.
Monday, October 06, 2008 - 18:44:52
An Irish journalist interviewed me Friday on the topic of Bill Clinton's enthusiasm vis a vis Barack Obama. I said I could understand his bruised feelings, but it looked to me as if he was doing everything asked.
In that vein: I just got a note that says Clinton will stand in for Joe Biden at two big-dollar fund-raisers in New York tonight because the death of Biden's mother-in-law will keep him away.
UPDATE: An attendee said Clinton predicted an Obama landslide during one of his appearances Monday night.
Monday, October 06, 2008 - 18:42:44
Hendrix College will get $1 million tomorrow to finance a center to encourage students' spiritual development.
Continue Reading »
Monday, October 06, 2008 - 15:55:55
The pro-lottery campaign has intervened in the lawsuit attempting to remove the amendment from the ballot.
Er, sorry Bud, but I don't think "hypocrisy" is a legal argument. The filing reiterates the argument that only statutes, and not the Constitution, prohibit casino gambling in Arkansas. Should the Supreme Court happen to explicitly agree with this argument in the course of this case, well ....
Here's the pro-lottery brief.
Here's the anti-lottery brief.
Continue Reading »
Monday, October 06, 2008 - 15:46:22
McCain would pay for his (pitifully ineffective) health care plan by cuts in Medicare and Medicaid. So says Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal.
Turn out the lights if this gets around, as it should.
Monday, October 06, 2008 - 15:36:37
Astute readers have already mentioned this piece, but Munford Miller recommends it for marquee attention. It's the Rolling Stone throwdown on John McCain.
Title: "Make-believe Maverick: A closer look at the life and career John McCain reveals a disturbing record of recklessness and dishonesty."
The opening anecdote, from a former SAC commander and honored Vietnam POW, is shattering.
Monday, October 06, 2008 - 15:24:03
An explosion at a gas well in Conway County has sent one person to the hospital with burns
Channel 11 reports.
Monday, October 06, 2008 - 13:49:40
Speed trap alert: LRPD rounding up lots of speed demons on University Avenue, the big hill running down from Cantrell Road.
(And a good thing, some might say.)
Monday, October 06, 2008 - 13:07:13
I should have said this earlier. There's no sharper illustration of the importance of this presidential election than news last week that federal Judges Bill Wilson and Jim Moody are retiring.
Do you want John McCain (or, by default, the Sarah Palin-led Republican base) selecting their replacements on the Little Rock bench or Barack Obama and Joe Biden?
Monday, October 06, 2008 - 11:09:26
Pat Page, director of the Division of Children and Family Services, announced her retirement, effective immediately, today.
The state's child welfare services -- never an easy task as her announcement of retirement notes -- has been under the spotlight lately for deaths of children in foster care and other issues. Gov. Mike Beebe has said the state's services are under a "top to bottom" review.
Page recently had the difficult duty of talking to a legislative committee about how state workers had failed to follow protocol in a case in which a Benton County foster parent sexually abused children in his care.
Things have not been right in child services. The administration has promised greater accountability. Is this change a sign? (Gov. Beebe told reporters later that the change was not at his instigation.)
Continue Reading »
Monday, October 06, 2008 - 10:18:15
I mentioned further news developments in the campaign to beat the initiated act that would make it harder to adopt and find foster parents, proposed Initiated Act 1.
It's a statement from a list of distinguished retired judges, including three former chief justices of the Supreme Court, who say the proposed legislation would present new obstacles for judges who handle these difficult cases.
Statement in Opposition to Proposed Initiated Act 1
“By narrowing the qualifications required of people who seek to adopt children or to act as foster parents, proposed Initiated Act No. 1 would limit the ability of every Arkansas judge to choose custodial parents who would serve the best interests of vulnerable children. The choices available to neglected and abused children and to the judges who must find homes for them are already tragically limited by the children's circumstances. Instead of imposing a blanket rule that would apply to every case, the needs of these children, and the best means of satisfying their needs, should be left to elected judges to decide case-by-case. Any step, such as that proposed in Initiated Act. No. 1, to limit further the options for stable homes for these children would do them grave injustice. It is in the best interests of these children that Initiated Act. No. 1 be defeated.”
· W.H. “Dub” Arnold, retired Chief Justice, Supreme Court of Arkansas
· Tom Glaze, retired Associate Justice, Supreme Court of Arkansas
· Steele Hays, retired Associate Justice, Supreme Court of Arkansas
· Jack Holt, Jr., retired Chief Justice, Supreme Court of Arkansas
· Bradley D. Jesson, former Chief Justice, Supreme Court of Arkansas
· Robin L. Mays, retired Chancery Judge
· Olly Neal, retired Judge, Arkansas Court of Appeals
· David Newbern, retired Associate Justice, Supreme Court of Arkansas
· John Plegge, retired Circuit Judge
· Andree Roaf, retired Judge, Arkansas Court of Appeals
· Judith W. Rogers, retired Judge, Arkansas Court of Appeals
· Edward Thomas Smitherman, retired Circuit Judge
· John F. Stroud, retired Judge, Arkansas Court of Appeals
Monday, October 06, 2008 - 10:15:33
Alaska blog chronicles competing weekend rallies for Obama and McCain's attack moose, the Alaskan governor.
Where's the love for Sarah, doggone it?
Monday, October 06, 2008 - 09:09:31
Can Advertising and Promotion Commissions spend their tax revenue on advertising that strictly promotes a private enterprise?
An attorney general's opinion released today says no. (But there is some wiggle room for burger tax custodians in promoting private enterprises in a city.)
PS -- Saunders said he requested the opinion on behalf of a constituent who objected to the appearance of such private entities as the Arlington Hotel, Oaklawn Park and Magic Springs in Hot Springs A&P ads. My opinion is that you can do general advertising in behalf of a city and include images of a variety of that city's attraction without running afoul of the law. But my opinion and a quarter will buy you one punch of the button on one of Oaklawn's games of skill.
Continue Reading »
Monday, October 06, 2008 - 08:47:43
Morning News has details about the 75-year-old Rogers woman charged with killing her husband. Police information makes it clear that she used a pistol stored in a nightstand (home protection, right?) to kill him while he slept. Her life was intolerable, she told the cops. One of them had to go. He wanted to have sex. She didn't. Another account this morning indicated she also was tired of cooking.
Justifiable homicide?
(Yes, of course. Both had been drinking.)
Monday, October 06, 2008 - 08:41:22
LRPD has released this surveillance camera photo of a suspect in a bank robbery calmly strolling from the Metropolitan Bank branch robbed last Friday.
Monday, October 06, 2008 - 06:54:05
Bailout or no bailouts, the world markets are in deep distress today. The economy, like the energy market, is global. A little domestic "drilling," whether to tap taxpayers or offshore oil reserves, is no panacea.
Foreign investors fear action last week isn't enough to ease the credit crisis.
UPDATE: Dow dips below 10,000.
Four more years of the same?
No wonder McCain wants to talk about Obama -- and Wright and Ayers (what a stretch) -- and not the economy.
This analyst argues that McCain's personal attacks on Obama won't work.
UPDATE II: With the Dow off 700, NY Times reports a few words from our leader George W. Bush. Couldn't somebody just tell him to jump in Cheney's bunker for the duration?
Monday, October 06, 2008 - 06:44:05
Desperate candidates do desperate things. Thus, McCain, sending Sarah Palin on the attack against Obama over casual connections to a 60s-era radical, William Ayers.
But really. Does Sarah Palin want to get into what a person's pastor and what their odd pronouncements say about a candidate?
More telling is McCain's role in the Keating Five scandal. Get ready for a reminder. (link fixed) And don't forget McCain's biggest pal, the odious Phil Gramm.
Monday, October 06, 2008 - 06:36:57
Democrats can debate
Bill Clinton's enthusiasm level for
Barack Obama all they wish. Just know that it's non-productive. Instead,
Brummett writes, they'd be better listening to and following his lead in a recent appearance for Obama in Florida. It's about the voter and his or her needs (the economy, stupid), not the other guy.
Sunday, October 05, 2008 - 17:50:43
If so ....