Friday, February 3, 2012
Week in Review Podcast The Outrage Edition
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An early open line
I'm checking out early to work on a project. The line is open. Stuff to add:
* REPUBLICANS RIP TREASURER SHOFFNER ON MISSED DEALDINE: I mentioned this earlier in the day and now the Arkansas Republican Party is making hay about a paperwork screwup that could cost 14 Arkansas counties a total of $1.1 million in federal support for road and other projects. It's kind of complicated. As the Association of Arkansas Counties tells it, the legislature in 2011 transferred authority for disbursing of federal turnback on Forest Service timber sales from the state Education Department to State Treasurer Martha Shoffner's office. Shoffner got a letter notifying her of the change, but the assumption appears to have been that a veteran Education Department employee would continue handling the paperwork as she always had. That employee retired. The paperwork wasn't filed by the Sept. 30 deadline. When the Forest Service called Shoffner's office about the missing documents, Shoffner's office got on it and filed the papers 20 days late, on Oct. 20. The state and the congressional delegation are now appealing denial of the money, which would have been distributed about this time of the year. The state is arguing that the state substantially complied. Counties' plans for spending the money had been drawn up and reviewed by federal officials, for example. A meeting a few days ago went well, county officials said. Now, they are waiting word. Meanwhile, Republicans have another example of a state foulup by a Democratic officeholder to add to the Forestry Commission. They want Shoffner to admit her "gross mismanagement." Perfectly fair. I just wish they'd issued the news release yesterday, when Visa, the credit card company, was using Shoffner as a pinup for its PR gimmick to market the credit card peddler's supposed good citizenship through a video game distributed to high schools. The immediate impact of the problem is delay of planned work, except in one case. Montgomery County may have to lay off three workers already employed for upkeep of rural parks. Here's a full rundown from the Association of Arkansas Counties. Stone County managed to get its paperwork in on time. Said AAC's Jeff Sikes: "The county treasurer had a note on her calendar or a tickler in her calendar that there was something that needed to be filed in September. When she didn't receive anything she started calling and, eventually, was directed to a Forest Service website where she downloaded the election form. She mailed the form in herself." See jump for Shoffner's response
* NEW MISSION FOR FT. SMITH FIGHTER WING: A new mission has been won for the 188th Fighter Wing in Fort Smith, which had been in danger of being cut. It will lose 20 A-10 aircraft, but will begin responsibility for a remotely piloted mission. That IS the future, isn't it?
* HEADSTART: Stephens Media has been following the nitty gritty, but it looks like the Head Start operator in Russellville — CDI — that ran into financial troubles is going to be mostly replac3ed by another operator. The new operator will take over federally funded slots, but some confusion remains about whether the troubled operator will get to stay in place and receive money provided through the Arkansas ABC program (which makes no sense in terms of efficiency or anything else). A statement from Arkansas DHS:
The federal government has hired CDI out of Denver to take over the HeadStart slots relinquished by CDI Russellville. Both the Headstart and ABC slots that CDI Russellville has will remain at the same facilities in the same counties so that there will be no disruption of service to the children. DHS will increase its monitoring of the programs. Historically, the CDI Russellville programs have been very high quality with few problems. DHS has no indication that any state funds were misspent. (ABC funds are reimbursed, meaning we pay for services already rendered.) Management from CDI out of Denver will be here on Monday to begin the transition of the Headstart program, but that contractor doesn’t officially take over until Feb. 10. In the meantime, the facilities continue to be open and the children continue to receive services.
* CARE ABOUT VETERANS?: I'm hearing that a stout grassroots response is underway to the city's crazy emergency ordinance to remove by-right zoning approval for everything from churches to liquor stores with specific emphasis in between on agencies that serve people in need of mental health services, such as the VA vet center proposed for 10th and Main. The ordinance is aimed at giving the City Board a tool to kill the vets center. Great question posed by a reader:
I notice a psychologist's office downtown on Cumberland Street. Will all psychologists and psychiatrists have to apply for a conditional use permit in the future? Will the psychiatric floors of St. Vincent and Baptist hospital have to apply for permits if they seek new facilities. What about the new Psychiatric Research Institute at UAMS. Would the new Wolfe Street center for Alcoholics Anonymous (on Louisiana, behind the proposed vet center Main Street) have been approved under this ordinance? The list goes on.
This ordinance hasn't been thought through, beyond the kneejerk effort by Mayor Mark Stodola and U.S. Rep. Tim Griffin to stop at nothing to prevent establishment of an adequate, carefully conceived facility for people who fight our wars. The ordinance would add a conditional use permit to hurdles the vets center must jump. Stodola believes he has the votes to kill it. If enough people call city directors, that vote count could change.
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Arkansas Politics Republican Burris doubles down — put poor kids to work!
It's all about Medicaid with Burris. Too bad he doesn't understand much about the program for the very poorest Arkansans. Said he to Roby Brock:
We’ve got to change the way we do business in Arkansas. The real problem, the real solution to get people off Medicaid rolls is to give them a job, make them able to self-sustain themselves without government assistance.
Only a small percentage of Medicaid recipients are able-bodied people — about 5 percent, the Democratic Party says. The rest are nursing home residents, the disabled and children.
Newt Gingrich, you've met your soulmate. John Burris appears to say:
Kids, grab a mop. There are school toilets to be swabbed.Disabled folks, mount your wheelchairs. Rep. Burris has work for you to do.
Granny and gramps, get somebody to lift you out of that nursing home bed and into a geri-chair. Maybe you can scrape plates in the cafeteria or something worthwhile.
Oh, and the rest of you in the 5 percent: I know, I know. Many of you actually ARE working. But your income is so low that you still qualify for Medicaid? How much sleep are you getting? Sleep less. Get another job, you sorry sonofabitchin' welfare fraud.
(LATE CLARIFICATION: Some people appear to have missed that I tried to signal that the passage immediately above was satirical exaggeration for effect. No, John Burris didn't utter those words, though those he did utter about curing Medicaid finances by putting those people to work were all too real.)
No kidding, Rep. Burris. Do you really have a clue about who gets government assistance and how much and in what form they receive it? And what their condition would be without the mite we supply them? This is the future of Arkansas and America if Burris becomes majority leader. Mark it down.
PS — How about John Burris get a job — besides sucking off the taxpayer teat at the Capitol?
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Law Don't go out a-drinkin' and Facebooking with workers comp on your mind
National pickup on an Arkansas Court of Appeals decision early in January that said it was proper that Facebook and MySpace photos of drinking and partying were considered in the Workers Compensation Commission's denial of a claim. MSNBC reports on the case of Zackery Clement, seeking benefits for a back injury.
Wrote Appeals Court Judge David Glover:
We find no abuse of discretion in allowance of the photographs. Clement contended that he was in excruciating pain, but these pictures show him drinking and partying. Certainly these pictures could have an effect on Clement's credibility, albeit a negative effect that Clement might not wish to be demonstrated to the [administrative law judge] ALJ or the Commission.
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Abortion Komen Foundation reverses decision to cut Planned Parenthood funding
- Wikipedia
- NANCY BRINKER: Apologizes for decision.
The Susan G. Komen Foundation for the Cure is said to have reversed its decision to stop providing grants for breast examinations to Planned Parenthood. NY Times coverage here.
The statement isn't quite that direct and leaves some wiggle room, seems to me. The days ahead will tell, but Komen is clearly trying to put out the fire. A statement from Nancy Brinker, the founder and board chair said, in part:
We want to apologize to the American public for recent decisions that cast doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women's lives.The events of this week have been deeply unsettling for our supporters, partners and friends and all of us at Susan G. Komen. We have been distressed at the presumption that the changes made to our funding criteria were done for political reasons or to specifically penalize Planned Parenthood. They were not.
The fallout has been enormous for Komen. The anti-choice political movement was clearly wrapped up in the decision, despite Brinker's protests, particularly as news came of impact that movement on other Komen foundation spending, such as a halt to support of stem cell research. Board member John Raffaelli, a Washington lobbyist and Texarkana native, had told the press flatly that the end of Planned Parenthood money was tied to anti-choice sentiment and feared impact on Komen from anti-choice motivated investigations in Congress against Planned Parenthood.
A number of affiliates, including the one in Arkansas, had distanced themselves from the decision and top officials had resigned.
The cat, however, is out of the bag, regardless of the reversal. There now will be fresh and deserved examination of political factors in all spending decisions by Komen; of corporate influence and marketing; of the percent of money raised that actually goes to breast cancer examinations, treatment and cures.
The anti-choice contingent in the U.S. is strong and organized. But it lives in a soundproof room. It hears only itself. The takeover of Komen by anti-choice adherents and their action here demonstrated how they underestimate the degree to which American women favor ready access to birth control, comprehensive health care and family planning and even — though under a variety of circumstances and often with restrictive regulations — abortion rights.
You might like to peruse the national Komen Foundation's federal tax return for 2010 for the Dallas headquarters organization, which shows about $74 million spent in grants and assistance to programs and organizations carrying out the mission — or roughly 41 percent of the year's $177 million in expenses, including $18 million in salaries, $18 million in marketing expenses, $11 million in office expenses, $8 million in technology expenses, $2 million travel expenses, $2 million for conferences, $18 million for consulting expenses, $2 million on race production and $7 million in "other" expenses. (Better Business Bureau says a charity should spend about 65 percent or more of its income on services.) UPDATE: However, a separate foundation that reports the fund-raising of local affiliates, which produce significant sums from the Race for the Cure with lower overhead, affects the overall performance of the organization in a favorable way and puts total effort beyond BBB suggested guidelines.)
Comments follow from the Arkansas affiliate of Komen and from Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, which serves Arkansas:
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Arkansas Politics John Burris steps in it; thinks poor have it made
Republican Minority Leader John Burris attacked over 750,000 Arkansans last night, admitting that Republicans don’t care about the elderly or Arkansas families who rely on Medicaid.
In a post on Twitter, Republican John Burris said, “Romney was spot on. Very poor do have safety net. Don’t believe it? Come look at our state’s Medicaid budget. Billions…”
“Which Arkansas child or senior would Burris want to take off Medicaid?” Candace Martin, communications director for the Democratic Party of Arkansas asked. “Over 750,000 Arkansans rely on Medicaid to ensure their family can lead a healthy life. For Burris to criticize Arkansans for wanting to keep their family healthy is disgraceful.”
Over 750,000 Arkansans are on Medicaid, and of those, 45 percent are disabled, 25 percent are seniors and 25 percent are children. Over 100,000 Arkansas children have received health coverage through ARKids First, the state's CHIP/Children's Health Insurance Program, since it was established under Governor Huckabee’s administration. Currently, there are about 70,000 Arkansas children served by the program.
“John Burris wants to blame children and disabled Arkansans, saying they are taking advantage of a ‘safety net’ built for them,” Martin said. “As a state legislator and the leader of Republicans serving in the state house, it’s frightening to think that Republicans have taken such an extreme position.”
Burris, whose financial resources apparently leave him well-enough fixed that he doesn't have to hold down a full-time job, suffers from wealthy Romney's same blindness, tone-deafness and lack of understanding of what it means to be poor in America.
They invoke "safety net" as if it is a bed of taxpayer-financed roses. Nets have holes, as Jon Stewart noted the other night. Food stamps, yes, are available, though often not enough to make it through a month. Health coverage is provided for the poorest (though not all the working poor), but not for every expense. Tell one of those minimum wage workers in the burger chain Burris once managed about how the "safety net" means their lives supporting a family on $16,000 a year is sweet. Tell it to granny in her nursing home bed, on Medicaid because her assets are zero and who scrapes to add a candy bar, magazine or new nightgown to her bare existence.
Spot on? What a nimrod.
UPDATE: Romney now says he "misspoke" (repeatedly as the record shows.) Mr. Burris? Care to retract?
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Economy Speaking of unemployment ...
Sad story in Eureka Springs' Lovely County Citizen about a secretary, Judie Robinson, who lost her job of 45 years at the state Forestry Commission in the layoffs required by the agency's insolvency when illegal funds transfers were stopped:
She was fired by letter. It arrived with postage due.
State Rep. Bryan King, who met with Robinson last week at a news conference in Eureka Springs, said he takes issue with Shannon on several levels."I object to the way they treated her termination," said King. "They should have made a reasonable effort for a face-to-face notification, if he were man enough."
King also objects to Shannon's handling of the commission, its finances and its personnel policies, saying Shannon should have notified state lawmakers of the budget shortfall, that he tried to pass the buck in the blame game, he muzzled his employees, and he misused funds.
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Economy National unemployment rate drops to 8.3 percent
I think one of my morning readers has it right:
News that a jump in jobs sent the unemployment rate from 8.5 to 8.3 percent in January will be credited by Republican candidates to the national expectation that Mitt Romney will win the November election. It's the hope, see, that something will at last be done about the economy President Obama destroyed.
CNN says:
U.S. employers stepped up their hiring in January, bringing the unemployment rate down for the fifth month in a row.Employers added 243,000 jobs in January, the Labor Department reported Friday, marking a pick-up in hiring from December, when the economy added 203,000 jobs. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate fell to 8.3% from 8.5%.
The report was stronger than most economists had expected. But the job market still has a long way to go to fully recover from the financial crisis. The economy still needs to add about 6 million jobs to get back to 2008 employment levels.
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Russellville agency gives up Head Start funding
Stephens Media has been closely following the apparent implosion of an agency in Russellville that has overseen Head Start programs in 13 counties. The latest news is that it will give up federal Head Start money and turn over federally financed programs to another agency. It will keep operating centers financed with private money or state ABC money. Payrolls have been missed. Money has been borrowed against a building. Personnel has changed. Only yesterday, the governor's office insisted to me this was a one-day payroll blip.
Right.
You don't give up federal funds lightly. Call me crazy, but I don't think the state should lightly continue to pour its money into an agency that has sent up such a red flag.
But .... DHS is the same agency that never saw a need to enforce the state law that prohibits religious instruction in its ABC programs. It is the agency where, Matt Campbell tells me, an employee blew off his telephone call about such spending in Rep. Justin Harris' religious daycare, Growing God's Kingdom. (DHS says it has "no record" of Campbell's call. I bet not.)
DHS is the agency that has drawn up rules transparently designed to give Harris wiggle room around prohibitions on use of federal money for religious instruction. It has made it clear in answers to my questions that whatever Harris does outside a seven-hour state window in the day is of no concern to the state. It has repeatedly refused to tell me that it will pay attention to the public dollars undergirding activities at Harris' center — building, utilities, food, staff — after that seven-hour window. It also says it can find none of the federal court cases found by Americans United for Separation of Church and State that say Harris and Sen. Johnny Key, another million-dollar legislative recipient of public money who uses it to teach religion in a pre-school, may not post religious materials in his publicly financed classrooms.
I don't know why I'd expect the state to have a care about federal concerns in the operation of a financially insolvent Head Start program given the state's record on monitoring of ABC programs. (Or, for that matter, its record on monitoring illegal borrowing at the Forestry Commission.) God will provide, won't She?
BTW: The state also claims it had NO — NO, I tell you — idea there was any religion going on in Justin Harris' daycare until Americans United complained formally. Its site inspectors apparently were blindfolded when they entered his parking lot (see photo above from months ago). They clearly didn't read the dozens of news articles here and elsewhere about his proselytizing.
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None dare call Visa a credit card
I noticed the Democrat-Gazette dutifully repeated the new-age euphemism for the credit card company being used by Visa these days to distance itself from the financial debacle with which most people associate plastic — "global payments technology company."
Don't know why the DOG didn't go ahead and use the rest of Visa's jargon — that the company "enables consumers, businesses, financial institutions and governments to use digital currency instead of cash or checks."
Otherwise known as credit cards.
I don't think that phrase — credit card — appeared in the story, though the NFL player, Christian Ponder, talked about how he'd once spent too much money dining. What do you bet he used Visa or other plastic on those outings?
No mention in the story either of Shoffner's own messy financial life — questionable campaign finance reports, charges to the state for vehicles, charges of favoritism in investment practices. I'm surprised Republican Rep. Nate Bell didn't interrupt the media event to raise the questions he's been posing about Shoffner on his Twitter account. He says her failure to file required forms on time cost a number of counties federal turnback money for road work. More later on that.
Maybe if Shoffner used global payments technology ...
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Arkansas Politics Republican smear works
The Arkansas Republican Party got a helluva ride in the Democrat-Gazette this morning on an almost wholly empty complaint about state Ethics Conmmission member Robert McCormack of Conway. I quote from the story and provide the answer to an amazing question posed there:
Does state law forbid a person from putting his name on a candidate’s campaign website before his appointment to the commission?
Answer: No.
Supplementary answer: How the hell could it?
State law also doesn't prevent a person from drinking alcohol before deciding whether to drive a car.
This story is real simple and real trivial. But with lead-local-new-section-play, it carried a big payload for Republican oppo researchers. McCormack supported his friend Linda Tyler's race for Senate BEFORE he was appointed to the Ethics Commission. Once a member, he may not contribute to her campaign or actively support her. He has committed no wrong by the fact that she continued to list him as a supporter on her website, but she should — and will — remove his name so that no ill appearance continues. Her opponent Republican Jason Rapert, got far less attention for accepting a $2,000 campaign contribution that was illegal because the donor had already contributed the $2,000 limit to his primary campaign. I'd like to note that, because such miscues happen periodically ( the $2,000 could have been legally reported for the general election campaign), I didn't report the Rapert violation despite Democratic oppo efforts to stir up a storm. Fair and balanced. That's me.
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Thursday, February 2, 2012
Thursday line is open
Over to you. Closing out:
* SUPPORT PLANNED PARENTHOOD: A wonderful suggestion here. Make a contribution to Planned Parenthood and ask for a thank-you card to Karen Handel, the right-wing, anti-abortion official of the Susan G. Komen Foundation who's been implicated in that organization's decision to stop providing breast cancer screening money to Planned Parenthood. You'll see in link about Handel that a former Mike Huckabee campaign staffer also has been influential in punishing Planned Parenthood. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced he'd give Planned Parenthood $250,000.
* BROADWAY BRIDGE DESIGNS: The Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department will have a public meeting from 4 to 7 p.m. Tuesday, February 7 at the Arkansas Transit Association office at 620 Broadway to show design concepts for a replacement Broadway Bridge. Local officials hope for an architecturally significant design. I'd prefer a new river crossing upriver and then replacing the Broadway Bridge after it's finished because downtown traffic otherwise will be utter chaos at rush hour when the Broadway link is taken out of service.
* HAPPY MOTORING: A member of the cycling community tells me that a House subcommittee has sent a transportation bill to the floor that will prevent infrastructure spending on any transportation except by motorized means. The tiny amount now spent for walking, cycling, hiking and safe pedestrian passage at intersections and other places will be gone. U.S. Rep. Steve Womack, a member of the subcommittee, voted against an amendment to restore money for these uses. (Hike/bike trails in NWA? Fugheddaboudit.) The bill goes to the floor. Attention now turns not just to Womack, but to Reps. Tim Griffin, Rick Crawford and Mike Ross. Were the Arkansas River pedestrian bridges, the River Trail, money for school crossing officers and other projects such bad things they should never be repeated?
* HOW THE GOP IS RESEGREGATING THE SOUTH AND DENYING PEOPLE THE VOTE: Two good pieces from Ari Berman, one on how the Republicans are diluting Democratic strength in redistricting with racially based practices, and another link to his important piece on the Koch-financed campaign to disenfranchise Democratic leaning voters.
* ARREST RELATED TO HOT SPRINGS VILLAGE SLAYING: The Garland County sheriff's office announced the arrest Wednesday in Lake Charles, La., of a probation violator, Kevin Duck, described as a "person of interest" in the slaying of Hot Springs Village resident Dawna Natzke. She was last seen leaving a party Dec. 21 with Duck, her boyfriend. Her body was found in woods the next day.
* LOG CABIN DEMOCRAT MOVES: The Log Cabin Democrat, the 132-year-old newspaper in Conway, is moving to a new downtown building and getting out of the printing business. Paxton Media will print the newspaper at its Russellville newspaper.
* LIFE IS CHEAP: A Washington County jury awarded $20,000 damages to the estate of James Ahern, killed by Bella Vista Police Officer Duke Brackney after a high-speed chase. Brackney said he shot Ahern because he was backing up in his direction. A camera on Brackney's car didn't show backup lights on. The jury refused a request for damages for excessive force and punitive damages, awarding $20,000 for loss of life. Brackney had pleaded earlier to a negligent homicide charge.
* EMBEZZLEMENT PLEA: Leander Muncy, former president of a truck company, pleaded guilty in federal court to embezzling $270,000 from a company pension fund.
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Little Rock Government City of Little Rock moving to block VA center
We love our veterans in Little Rock, just so long as those who come back from wars with problems go where nobody can see them.
The latest in Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola's crusade to keep a VA service center for vets off Main Street is a hurryup revision in Little Rock ordinances set for consideration next week. In short, it would require a conditional use permit from the City Board for a community health or welfare center, an establishment to care for alcoholic, narcotic or psychiatric patients, an establishment for religious, charitable or philanthropic organizations or for liquor stores.
Over the long haul, this has implications for dozens of organizations new and existing. In the short run, it would require a conditional use permit, not now required, for the VA day center, which has outgrown its space at 2nd and Ringo and has a lease and construction plans in hand for a new center at 10th and Main in an abandoned car dealership. Mayor Stodola has called the location idiotic. The neighborhood has been split on the issue. The VA has explained that all its clients are not homeless and all have agreed to rules of use in a facility that will be well regulated and secured.
The city will face no new obstacles in turning an aging homeless shelter on Confederate Boulevard into a city day homeless center. Mayor Stodola has already made it clear that he deems that neighborhood, with a nearby magnet school, suitable for dumping people, from the general homeless to military veterans enrolled in therapeutic, educational and vocational programs. U.S. Rep. Tim Griffin, likewise, has joined those trying to force military veterans into the boondocks at a decrepit facility not yet up to code, not handicap accessible and otherwise an insult to the people Griffin and others invoke solemnly as political foils on Memorial Day.
There was a time when city legal minds said you couldn't simply set a NIMBY standard on treatment facilities, which this conditional use process will institutionalize. No neighborhood will want a treatment center. They will be awarded depending on how loud neighbors scream or how much clout neighborhoods have before the City Board. Confederate Boulevard? Not so much. Main Street? More. The Heights and Chenal? No need to ask. A rational, non-arbitrary standard for making these calls won't be possible, as they were under previous zoning.
VA officials said they just learned of the proposed ordinance today and weren't prepared to comment. They are still waiting to hear from the secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, who was asked to review the Main Street proposal by Congressman Griffin. City officials believe the VA can cancel its lease without financial obligations because, even before this ordinance, Board of Adjustment approval was necessary for parking, landscaping and other aspects of the redevelopment plan. The city attorney thinks the lease cannot be enforced at cost to federal taxpayers if the VA hasn't obtained city approval. I don't know what the developer holding the contract thinks about that.
There's another looming problem in this hurryup lawmaking from the people at City Hall who once helped earn Little Rock the title of the meanest city in America in treatment of homeless. Removing liquor stores from by-right approval in all zoning categories essentially puts the city in control of where permits are granted in the city. That is a power reserved by law to the state. The city sees it differently. That's what courts are for, I guess.
PS — City claims, with utter lack of credibility, that this ordinance wasn't designed to stop the vets' center. Even if you give them that, you can't ignore the emergency that requires adoption next week before VA can get its building permit. The lying liars of City Hall are at it again. A proud day for the strong mayor.
PPS — Homeless advocate and downtown resident Robert Johnston poses some questions:
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Arkansas Culture and Characters Arkansas Tech replaces theater director Ardith Morris
Kate Brugh, who was theater production manager, also was reassigned to teaching duties.
The theater program has long been a source of friction on campus. Tech President Robert Brown set off one controversy by banning use of a prop gun in a stage musical in 2008. Before that fight over free expression was over, public performances had been severely limited and Morris was lauded by the ACLU for her 1st Amendment defense.
Things blew up again with closure of the theater program's workshop following a fire department safety inspection last fall. Theater defenders saw this as an orchestrated inspection and said cramped conditions in the workshop were a result of the administration's long failure to provide adequate facilities.
The school cited the workshop safety problem in the leadership change, but also said the program wasn't attracting enough students and producing enough drama teachers.
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Gas drilling Legislators fight to be gas lobby's biggest friend
Rep. Linda Tyler of Conway was a small exception to the herd mentality. She suggested that Republican Sen. Michael Lamoureux replace Rapert as caucus chair because Rapert is too partisan. No, says Rapert, Tyler is too partisan. Silly. She and Rapert are likely to face each other in November for a Senate seat. Chairmanship or no chairmanship, Rapert will be pounding the gas company drum throughout the political season. The Koch lobbyist in attendance also twittered that Tyler is in a tiny number that hasn't yet expressed a desire to draw and quarter the president for delaying the Keystone pipeline. It'll be interesting to hear what she has to say on the subject. She's not exactly known as an environmentalist.
UPDATE: Tyler explained later that she opposes the severance tax and wants the Keystone pipeline built but favored a more positive resolution on the pipeline issue that wasn't so negative. Her full statement is on the jump.
Remember these demagogues when somebody wants to put a pipeline through the middle of your sensitive watershed or aquifer. They don't give a rat's behind about your water. They serve the gas companies first. Republicans in Nebraska have demonstrated a bit more sense of civic responsibility. They've been critical in holding up the Keystone because it was originally planned — with all its potential leaks and hazardous payload — to pass through a critical aquifer.
There'll be yammering from the Fayetteville shale caucus, too, about the supposed impact on the Welspun Tubular plant in Little Rock. As we reported this week, the job impact there has been exaggerated. 60 people who work part-time — not permanently — in shipping are not currently working. But they will have about 12 months of shipping work to do when the pipe is shipped. Continued jobs would depend on other work. The Keystone pipe has already been made, by the way, and is headed to TransCanada for this or other projects regardless. Some finishing remains. Meanwhile, some 500 people are at work at Welspun on this and other projects.
This is a good time to reprint a forceful op-ed piece written by Sam Lane of Greenbrier, an anti-fracking activist. He wrote one version for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette to respond to Rapert. He sent me another. It follows. I doubt anyone with such clear thinking is likely to be invited to the Shale Caucus. He speaks for concerns beyond corporate interests.
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Event Calendar
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Re: An early open line
About death and dying, everyone must reach their own decision. "The American Way of Death"…
- on February 3, 2012
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Re: An early open line
That is hopefully good news about the 188th - as long as a human American…
- on February 3, 2012
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Re: An early open line
In regard to the Treasurer's office, incompetency knows no party boundaries. We have Martha Shoffner…
- on February 3, 2012
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