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Wednesday, February 28, 2007 - 17:03:58
Demon rum
The proliferation of "private clubs" in Conway -- full-service restaurants with alcoholic beverages -- has been welcomed in many quarters. But not all.
The Board of Trustees of Central Baptist College last Saturday adopted a resolution opposing any further alcohol permits in the city and urging the Chamber of Commerce, Conway Development Corp. and Downtown Partnership to cease active advocacy of such permits. And other parties -- politicians, etc. It urged churches to join the battle.
Food for thought
ACORN will be demonstrating at the Wendy's on Broadway tomorrow around 10:30 a.m. as part of a national effort to support federal legislation that would require at least seven paid sick days a year for employers of 15 or more.
Consider yourself lucky (as I do), if you work at a company that provides paid sick leave, never mind paid family or maternity leave. Acorn says nearly half of all private-sector workers are entitled to NO sick pay. Not a single day. The grassroots organization says more like three in four low-wage workers lack a sick day.
Wouldn't family values and compassionate conservatism -- not to mention giving sick workers a reason not to infect co-workers -- support this notion?
Justice Department Q&A
Q: Why would the Bush Justice Department force out adequately performing U.S. attorneys around the country in favor of political hatchet men, such as Tim Griffin in Little Rock?
A: See this McClatchy newspaper story today:
The U.S. attorney from New Mexico who was recently fired by the Bush administration said Wednesday that he believes he was forced out because he refused to rush an indictment in an ongoing probe of local Democrats a month before November's Congressional elections.
David Iglesias said two members of Congress separately called in mid October to inquire about the timing of an ongoing probe of a kickback scheme and appeared eager for an indictment to be issued on the eve of the elections in order to benefit the Republicans. He refused to name the members of Congress because he said he feared retaliation.
Couldn't happen here. Right?
UPDATE: Action today in the Senate with Dem. Sen. Patrick Leahy offering an amendment to 9/11 legislation to revoke the little-noticed kicker in the Patriot Act that has allowed the Bush administration to install U.S. attorneys for unlimited interim periods without Senate confirmation.
Toyota: From another angle
Thanks to a reader for a link to a report on a ranking of the state's according to how well they're fixed to compete in the new global tecnology economy.
At the bottom: West Virginia, Mississippi, South Dakota, Arkansas and Alabama. Not surprising, I guess, these state rely on cheap costs and natural resources rather than innovation to attract jobs to their states.
FLASH: UA Board appointment -- UPDATE
Gov. Mike Beebe has named Tyson Foods honcho John Tyson to the Board of Trustees of the University of Arkansas. He fills the seat vacated by the conclusion of the term of Charles Scharlau.
Nobody would ever suggest that the Board ever utters a peep about athletic matters at UAF. But if they did, I think it safe to say this would be an appointment that won't send the football coach racing into the stands to lead the band in a few stanzas of the fight song.
Tyson lives in Springdale, not exactly a hotbed of Houston Nutt support, in case you missed my original point.
PS -- Since it's sure to arise, I can tell you that our Jim Harris has a copy of Butch Davis' contract at UNC. No, it does not contain a release should the Arkansas job become available. He can buy his way out, however. For a couple of million.
UPDATE: Brummett has written a sharp column on this development, complete with a rather pregnant statement from Archie Schaffer at Tyson, about the new man on the UA Board. It has been posted early at the Morning News website.
Archie Schaffer, Tyson’s PR man, read for me a statement in which Tyson said he looked forward to helping lead the UA’s Fayetteville campus to the next level in both academics and athletics and to effecting whatever changes might be necessary toward that end.
Seldom have I encountered a more loaded short statement. Concern yourself with only two words. Those were “athletics” and “changes.”
John Tyson reportedly hasn’t any use for Houston Nutt, the football coach of the Razorbacks, and believes replacing him to be essential toward reaching that higher level to which he referred. He thought as much even before Nutt got crossways with all of Springdale over the Malzahn/Mustain debacle.
The imperial presidency
Now it's Salon (you'll have to watch an ad to see it, I think), covering the Bush administration putsch of prosecutors to install political hatchet men like Tim Griffin in U.S. attorney slots around the country. Senate confirmation of U.S. attorneys is for sissies and Democrats, not the Cheney administration. Says Salon:
Former officials, legal scholars and U.S. lawmakers from both parties have publicly questioned the administration's stated rationale for the firings and have suggested troubling theories about the real reasons for the purge, which experts say is without precedent. Some former Justice Department officials say they believe the administration's moves are a politically driven power grab -- aimed not only at a tighter grip on policy from Washington, but also at creating openings with which to reward their friends and build up a bench of conservative loyalists positioned to serve in powerful posts in future administrations.
Come November 2008, we expect to see the Republican putsch bear fruit. Prediction: U.S. attorneys will send SWAT teams to areas with traditionally rich Democratic votes to intimidate and suppress voters. But don't look for SWAT teams in Republican-rich Benton County, even though it was home to the single biggest vote irregularity of 2006, repeatedly changing vote counts that began -- and was reported with a straight face -- with vote totals exceeding the number of registered voters.
Freedom of Information -- UPDATE
Government officials will turn out in force -- or at least turn out whispering in the hallways -- to oppose HB 1520 in committee today. It would make it easier to get attorney fees for plaintiffs who substantially prevail in Freedom of Information Act lawsuits and allow the state and its agencies to pay the fees. Word is that Attorney General Dustin McDaniel is among those with objections to the bill. Say it ain't so, Dustin.
Local government lobbyists naturally oppose it because the petty despots that run local courthouses and city halls are accustomed to playing hardball with unwashed citizens seeking public information and open meetings. If it were up to them, they'd impose a loser pays rule on FOI suits. Or repeal the whole act altogether.
AND SPEAKING OF THE FOI: I'm in receipt of a letter written in behalf of a group raising environmental objections to a water pipeline planned in South Arkansas. It is to be the subject of a closed meeting today between proponents of the pipeline and Teresa Marks, director of the Department of Environmental Quality. The letter notes that two members of the El Dorado Water and Sewer Commission are scheduled to be in the meeting. If that's so, the meeting can't be held in secret. Presumably Ms. Marks will allow representatives of the Save the Ouachita group attend the meeting under these circumstances. It's at 1 p.m. today.
UPDATE: The FOI legal fees bill -- which grew out of a Fort Smith case of secret government -- failed on an 8-9 vote. I'm going to try to scare up a roll call. Opponents tried to kill it first with an amendment to protect public officials who made a "good faith" effort to comply. Does that mean they in good faith thought they did right in slamming shut the door to a meeting or in refusing to produce documents? I'm going to dig up the "no" votes.
UPDATE II:
Good guys: Evans, Pate, Edwards, Adcock, Brown, Cheatham, Greenberg, Wood.
Bad guys: Jeffery, Hardwick, Pace, Harris, Green, Reynolds, Lovell, Hall, Saunders.