Arkansas Times

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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.

Continue Reading »

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