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Saturday, March 31, 2007 - 18:49:39
Shall we?
Invite all comments?Recent trip to the Far East?
From the Wall Street Journal:
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson faces a sartorial problem partly due to his ever-fluctuating weight. He insists on buttoning his suit jacket, which often looks like it's about to burst open. "It's pretty obvious we don't have an image consultant," says spokesman Guillermo Meneses.Republican hopeful Mike Huckabee had to replace his entire wardrobe after being diagnosed with diabetes in 2003 and shedding more than 100 pounds.
He now favors two handmade suits he purchased on a recent trip to the Far East. "Oh, maybe I wasn't supposed to say that,'' says spokeswoman Alice Stewart. "Buy American, you know.''
I hope this doesn't mean he's traveling with that strange Indian evangelist K.A. Paul again.
Rats leave the sinking ship
Bush insider, Matthew Dowd, belated discovers the emperor has no clothes.
Looking back, Mr. Dowd now says his faith in Mr. Bush was misplaced.
In a wide-ranging interview here, Mr. Dowd called for a withdrawal from Iraq and expressed his disappointment in Mr. Bush’s leadership.
He criticized the president as failing to call the nation to a shared sense of sacrifice at a time of war, failing to reach across the political divide to build consensus and ignoring the will of the people on Iraq. He said he believed the president had not moved aggressively enough to hold anyone accountable for the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and that Mr. Bush still approached governing with a “my way or the highway” mentality reinforced by a shrinking circle of trusted aides.
There used to be a crude saying in my high school in response to blasts of insight such as this. No s***, Sherlock.
It's integrity, stupid
Bud Cummins, writing in Salon, says the Bush Justice Department has blown it.
You only get one chance to hold on to your credibility. My team, which holds temporary custody of the Department of Justice, has blown it in this case.
Rumor and innuendo -- UPDATE
A couple of unrelated, wholly unsubstantiated bits of rumor going around so widely that I thought I'd ask what others had heard.
1) Former legislator Joyce Elliott is in line to head the state Health Department after Gov. Mike Beebe exercises his option to split it off from Human Services.
2) The special Little Rock School Board meeting last week was fraught with significance. It was cancelled because two members were unavailable to meet. Unhappiness with Superintendent Roy Brooks may be coming to a head. It would take four votes to fire him or come up with a buyout offer. Such an action would bring the grief of important business people, such as the daily newspaper publisher, down on the head of the district, with probably damaging public relations consequences. On the other hand, the story also goes that some of those same influential people are working to make friends of members they've opposed previously.
UPDATE: A health professional I respect offers the following thoughts on the Health Department:
Public health is a professional discipline, not a bureaucratic function. Ark funds a fraction of what other states provide per capita to run the Health Department, and the agency stretches Centers for Disease Control and other dollars to provide what should be state core functions. Halverson (currently leading the Health division of DHHS) wrote THE book for the American Public Health Association on state and local public health, and has Steve Bodigheimer from CDC in admin-- good guys.
Traumatized
A doctor who backs legislation to raise insurance taxes to pay for a statewide trauma system writes a letter to me and others about the failure, so far, to get this legislation passed. The problem has been the money source -- the insurance industry doesn't want a tax increase; a court system where court costs are already overburdened with all kinds of special fees didn't want payment done that way. A fair question is why a session with $900 million in surplus, and a 10 percent general budget increase even after cutting a quarter-of-a-billion in sales taxes and corporate welfare out the wazoo, including for low-wage manufacturing plants, can't provide this money without a tax/fee increase.
Dr. Joseph Jensen's letter and a hospital association note on the jump. (One clarification: though UAMS is not currently accredited as a trauma center, he has previously assured me that it would be if it applied for accreditation.)
It might be worth noting that UAMS seems to have placed a higher priority on its cancer research center expansion than on this project, if success in the search for money is any measure.
Hoop hysteria
A note for basketball fans. Jim Harris and sports columnists JR and Henry will be live-blogging the Final Four games today over at our Little Rocking blog.Huckabee v. Pryor II
Those term limit ads
Open line
The verdict on LRCVB
It's wide open
Correction
Huck TV -- UPDATE
Shylocks lose
Let Pryor have it
Priorities
Griffin replacements
Griffin enabler gone
Back to pork
No motion
Squealing
Capital spending
LR lad on Letterman
Stupid Senate tricks
Karl Rovegate
Catching up
Pork -- the new white meat
Fear and loathing III
Double-secret welfare
Lake Maumelle protection
Shout it from the rooftops
Wrong magazine for Wal-Mart
A wackjob leads them
Wal-Mart through the keyhole
Another Iraq vote
The fixation on gay people
Funeral note
Basketball saga
The raid on culture
The shylocks
Of course it was a lie ... UPDATE
Gerth rides again -- UPDATE
Tears in your beer
Fear and loathing on the ballot
Do not be fooled
Retreating?
Biography: J. Timothy Griffin
Plan B
There goes the neighborhood
The Equal Rights Amendment
If you can't make it there ...
Neanderthal time
The Naked State
Divorce filing
Iraq withdrawal vote
Second Coming -- UPDATE
Gay adoption bill dies -- UPDATE
Our loss -- UPDATE II
Death in committee
Money delay
Question answered
Big day at the Capitol -- UPDATE
John White, lie?
Pryor the holdout
Beebe's triangulation
Pro-choice
GOP replacements
Na, na, na, na, na, na, na
OBU excitement
Animal cruelty -- UPDATE
Green Acres
If their lips aren't moving, they aren't lying
Chotard retiring
Dirty mind
It's official -- Heath axed
Revenue raid -- UPDATE II
Hoop crazy
Evanescence at Alltel
Insuring athletics
Impact fees
Today's sleaze
How much longer?
Adios Alberto -- UPDATE
Going too far
U.S. attorneygate
Suffer the animals
Cry the beloved country
Slacking
Presidential recruitment -- UPDATE
Worker protection?
Environmental protection?
Here's a shock -- UPDATE
Lobby time
Open line
Presidential polling
For the plaintiffs
Live, from the Arkansas Senate
Iraq withdrawal
Paper covers rock
Local angle in beauty contest
Rumor of the morning ... UPDATE
Under wraps
Call in your pledges -- UPDATE
Karl Rove's boy -- UPDATE II
Talking about my generation
Caterwauling
In the e-mail
Checking in
Justices prevail
Edwards won't quit
Vets care report: Ark. cited
Sifting the documents -- UPDATE
The Who show is on
Monkeying around in Rogers
Hit lists
Terrible ideas
Bu(i)l session maximum
The amendments
Ticket scalping
Dose of Dumas
The Who update
Son of the P.R. fund
Gay adoption -- UPDATE
Beebe weighs in
50 years after
The Who?
The day at the Capitol
The agenda
Carving the pork
Questions?
Katrina fallout
On more important topics
Take it away
Layoffs at Acxiom
Suffer the animals
Correction
P.C. Warriors
Hospital report
Tim's Law
From the documents
The lying liars
The coy lt. gov.
Tomorrow's column today
Scanning the blogs
Attorneygate document dump
GOP leadership
Tables turned
All the news isn't bad
Greasing the skids
Dumbing things down
Follow the money
The Who -- a question mark
Arkie on board
Celebrate St. Joseph's Day
The case of the sexy psychologist
The final days
Page one 'news'
Democracy in LR
Scopes Umpteen
In unison: Clinton didn't do it, too
Leahy won't play nice
Smell's good, too
Clinton DIDN'T do it, too
Memories of Cotton Plant
Journalism review
Sorry, technical problems
We interrupt this program for a rant
It's all yours
Huckabee in New Hampshire
Let us not pray
Question of the day
Damaged goods
Define cohabitation
And one last thought
Friday night lights
LRCVB -- INNOCENT!
Paying back the judges
Huckabee cleared
Court to legislators: Looking good
Griffin's legal
We don't need no stinkin' third parties
Running out the clock -- UPDATE
Jury's in on the judge -- UPDATE
No Wal-Mart bank -- yet
Valerie Plame speaks -- UPDATE
Media notes
Dig deep, but wait a few days
House amendments
The lobbyists are restless
Cheers!
Senate amendments
Safer driving -- CORRECTION
Do you smell what I smell?
Hero this morning; goat this afternoon
Beebe bashes FEMA
Ixnay on cyber hunting
Banco Wal-Mart
The day the music died -- UPDATE
Fire, then impeach
C-SPAN alert -- UPDATE II
Bud Cummins gets it
Unholy alliance
Third parties
Property rights
Gov. Wuss
Mansion moves
School news
Victory? Or another payday lending bill?
What, not the Chicks?
Q: Are you being served? -- UPDATE
Snyder staff changes
And Willett sez ... UPDATE
The U.S. attorney -- UPDATE II
The so-called liberal media
Deadly night
Rockefeller Foundation leader
Ethics update -- Willett steps in it
The Senate on the small screen
Cut from a different cloth
For your reading pleasure
Cleaner government
Deep doo-doo
Gay-haters win -- ROLL CALL UPDATE
More on the liars -- SMOKING GUN UPDATE
Shylocks prevail
Missing freedom fighters
The lying liars -- UPDATE
Church-state partnership
Duh -- U.S. attorneygate
Halter-Pryor
Safety last
I'm back
Stacking up the prizes
Washington wisdom
Prejudice prevails
Arkansas: a decider not
Rousing the base
Hooping it up
Pressing matters
Pressing matters
Sunday
Huckabee hires
Punctuation battle stations
Good parents
Election fever
Republican player
Attorneygate rolls on
Woo Pig
Quote of the day
On Tim's trail
Good question
The great moral issues
A good day for guns
Heckuva job
Hunting for laughs
That old-time religion
For the love of teaching
Friday night flights
It takes two to tango
Trailers headed to Dumas
Youth Ranch robbed, vandalized
Halter to challenge Pryor?
Big brother and Wal-Mart
Who wasn't fired?
Faster than the speed of blog
FEMA: No disaster in Dumas
Checking in
All yours
Countdown to April 12
More Rove on video (UPDATE)
Pickett blames machine error for vote
Chemical spill in Benton (UPDATE)
Any kind of prayer?
Rove speaks in Little Rock (UPDATED W/VIDEO)
'No military solution' in Iraq
Razorback satire
Immobile homes
Judges allege pressure under Huckabee
The politics of disaster response
World's richest man: Keep estate tax
Phil Mickelson coming to Alotian
Today's Tim Griffin report
Charter school bill passes House
Vows, political and matrimonial
Little Rock named 'distinctive destination'
House hearing set on Dumas tornado response
Read my lips: No new tax cuts
The forgotten favorite
Huckabee camp shake-up
Senators exempt themselves on ethics
Told you so
Making excuses
Fair and balanced
Toe-suck daze
Stamping out smoking
Big number -- UPDATE
Crude
Libby found guilty
The fat index
Uh-oh -- UPDATE
Bright spot -- UPDATE
D is for distinctive
Campaign changes -- UPATE
The Wal-Mart snoops
Bad idea
The Bush coup -- UPDATE
Tough review -- UPDATE
Safer roads
Now I get it
Complainant and juror
Let us pray and bash gays -- UPDATE
Stronger mayor -- UPDATE
Wal-Mart snoop
Arkansas's legislature
Waltons take a licking
Gift horse
Official secrets
School watch -- UPDATE
Supporting the troops
Charmer
Alltel sale?
Air scare
The so-called patriots
We're all New Orleanians
The stench
Glorious day
Not so impressed
Brummett: Re Tim Griffin
Your assignment
Do you believe in miracles?
Al Gore was right
Political purge
Quip-draw McGraw -- UPDATE
Priorities
But what's he for?
The line is open -- UPDATE
Touchdown
Ethics watch
You're walking on the fightin' side ...
I swear upon Grover Norquist -- UPDATE
The money report
Personal support
Good question
Out of the soup
Charter schools
Counter-offensive --- UPDATE
Go green
The sound of music
Presidential polling
On the ethics front
Playing to the base
Gentlemen, take your seats -- UPDATE
Bad gas
Small world
On hooking up
Nolan gives UA a working over
They'll be convoying to Arkansas
Legislators get theirs
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