Arkansas Blog

Bill didn't release his full medical records either.

Then again, neither did Bush or Kerry.

Funny how you overlooked that to get in a dig at Huckabee.

red nobody loses 100 pounds in a year by dieting.

Unless he reacts to surgery differently than I do -- no I haven't had bariatric surgery although some might think I need to -- surely those who were around him during the time in question could have a pretty good idea whether or not he did.
If he did, so what, unless he did but chooses to be deceptive about it. Still, I'm as curious as anyone else. Anyone out there who was around him a lot in the appropriate time period?
Incidently, who paid for the program he does own up to? Most insurance policies I've heard of won't touch it.

I have no reason to doubt his story. As he was slimming down, I remembered my experience a few years earlier when I lost nearly 60 pounds in 3 months without even trying.

I went to the doctor and discovered that I had become a type II diabetic.

Weight loss was easy -- nothin' to it. I was down to skin and bone and couldn't gain a pound, because it was melting off of me. Truly, I had nothing to do with losing all that weight.

Then came the hard part -- I had to learn how to live with diabetes.

I'm not suggesting that our former governor didn't tell the whole truth about losing his 100 pounds. I admire anyone (even a reformed governor) who can come to terms with diabetes. We diabetics have a duty to enlighten and motivate others who also deal with that curse, and he seems to be doing his share of it.

When Brother Huck says dumb or illogical things, I can empathize.

When my glucose hikes downward below 100 points, I say (and write) really dumb things, and I wobble around on my feet.

Mrs. Ecce has just suggested that I should leave my little workbench now and check my glucose.

Zonker, you are wrong. I have a relative who has lost 70 lbs in about 7 months simply by dieting. It is well within reason for her to lose 100 lbs in a year.

The state offers a liquid diet program thru Corphealth. Cost to insured is only the price of the food approx. $100 wk. insurance pays for the classes. I think is a scam. Currently trying to find out more infor re: Corphealth. Long story short I adopted a son. His birthmother is a drug addict. My child needs therapy and Corphealth is refusing to pay. A coworker's son's claims were also denied. what exactly does this company do for state employees?

Huck needs to preach a little more to his family and little less to the rest of us. Did you see pictures of his son when he was arrested? Janet could workout some too.

HuckAbuck's, before photo looks better than the after photo!?!?

Well I have been saying this among my friends that he had some sort of surgery done. First, he was mysteriously out of public sight for a while, and then afterward he had all that hanging skin which is often attributed to surgical procedures. Finally, it is the conservative nature to preach one thing and do another because the ends justifies the means.

Lapband.

If Huck had a bypass thing of some sort I don't know why he wouldn't admit it. He could have written a book about that too. It's keeping the weight off that makes me think he had a bypass. It doesn't really matter.....preachers preach, liars lie and there is no bypass surgery to cure that.

I'm not skinny, but type 2 diabetes sure enough keeps me from being fat. There are lots of worse things to have, but it sure ruins the party. I was going to a blood doctor weekly for a year when my teeth suddenly started turning colors and crumbling...I mean like nearly overnight. I felt like death and at 45 my teeth were falling apart. I had record breaking toothaches. Because I can't get insurance because of the iron thing with my blood, I couldn't afford to go to a dentist because of all the money I was forced to give the blood doctor. I was sailing far far up Shit Creek.

Then one morning after I had had my monthly blood tests at the blood doctor the day before, his nurse called and asked if I had happened to eat a whole box of cookies before I had my tests done the day before. No, I replied.....I fasted after midnight like she asked. She told me my fasting blood sugar level was 360 and I might watch out for a coma or death. Thanks nursey....why did it take you all a year? I would have bit her if I had had any damn teeth by that point!

Once you get past 40 be on the lookout. I think the movie Logan's Run might have been on the mark after all. Don't be Woody Allen about it....but if something changes....like constant thirst or a Little Debbie craving that won't go away. Or your teeth suddenly turn to chalk.....get to a doctor fast....it's not your imagination in most cases. And you prayers start praying for national health care. If the damn politicians were really worried about our health they'd do something to make sure no sick person ever has to do without.

i am definitely not one to preach about losing weight. i would be glad to bet huck cash to his campaign which is short of money about taking off his shirt.

Whether it was a liquid diet or surgery, I doubt VERY seriously that he paid one red cent for it. In many businesses, the insurance for the higher ups is FAR better than for the masses. Can't say that's how the state does it, but it wouldn't be surprising. Nor, would it be surprising to image a certain local citizen saying "Now Mike, I promise, if you do really good on it, I'll do it too....and just to prove that I'm behind you, I'll even pay"

I just wish we could stop being supplied with pictures of him in his running shorts and t-shirt. For the love of God, get some longer running shorts. You're not a university track star. And that head ban!

red nobody loses 100 pounds in a year by dieting.<<

Well, I did, almost, dropped 90 lbs of blubber in one year and it has never returned. That was over 35 years ago. I became much more active, and changed my entire approach to nutrition. Now the problem is keeping enough weight on. At 6'1" I usu weigh in at 170-175.
Eating fresh is a key. Minimizing carbohydrates is essential. Corn makes good food for pigs.

And for god's sake most arkies fail to realize their food cravings are often a craving for tastes, all of them, sweet, sour, bitter, pungent, and salt.

That's funny. Clinton never released his full medical records. They would have showed that his septum was destroyed by heavy cocaine use.

Who told you that, Prouster? Justice Jim? Or did you hear it from your sister-in-law's cousin's boy, who dated a nurse at one time?

Nice touch of irony there Prouster. What better way of casting ridicule upon a very doubtful assumption about Huckabee than by making a more ridiculous statement about Clinton.

Brilliant strategy. Let's take the speculation even further and figure out how Bush and Cheney's lack of a conscience came about from poor potty training when they were little. What mind-altering substances did Cheney consume that made him one who wants to hunt terrorists and terrorize hunters?

If Bush was in a roomful of people and had an original thought would anyone notice? Does he get his potent Jesus Juice from some backwoods Baptist still? If he had a "libral" dose of laxative and a good "constitution"-al, would that clear the shit from his brain?

Just ask yourself one thing: when our country was attacked, who was it that attacked our freedoms and rights?

Now ask yourself what "Mission Accomplished" really means in light of the way our Constitution has been eroded, executive privilege has been abused, and lying has become administrative policy.

ENOUGH!!

Prouster's been talking to the splat in the sink guy again. How many moles does Clinton have on his ass again.....I've plumb forgot. And was it Michael Jackson whose bad thang had a discoloration or was that Bill? If you ever had finger food at Jeff Dahmer's house Prou.......them weren't fingers!

Oh, I see. Huckabee TOTALLY had lapband surgery and lied about it, in spite of the fact that any Democrat on staff at UAMS would be able to contradict him with one well-placed anonymous leak. Meanwhile, someone whose brother went to federal prison for coke dealing can't POSSIBLY have snorted a few lines during the eighties.

i will admit i was wrong. it does not happen around this house more than about 10 times a day as i have been married for 35 years. maybe he did lose it by dieting. it is one of the few things he has been honest about. maybe clinton and bush did coke in the 80's, what difference does that make to how they govern? as my wife says, did bill vow to us to be loyal to hillary? what damn difrence does any of it matter to us? if one party thinks it matters then the other shouldn't. henry hyde said a few years ago that clinton was nothing for him but payback for nixon. isn't that the reason any of them do most it.? doesn't it make you feel good about the value we get for our taxes?

Since the topic is all things medical today maybe someone has a clue as to who fathered
the Bush twins. I've read & heard Laura had to use the ole turkey baster as Dubya
couldn't get the job done....they don't look like any bushies either...would love to see
DNA test results.

Already toning it down a bit aren't we Prouster?

From your statements in your last entry, it seems you're doing your usual bang up job of connecting C with D and getting Zero. You make Rush Limbaugh look positively ingenious. Why not stick with the truly disgusting and sophomoric humor about Clinton such as this classic:

Q: Why did Monica want to work at the White House?

A: Because she wantedf to be on the presidential staff.

Or, how about this lowbrow approach to the monkeyboy's limp staff:

Q: Why did Bush call Gonzles on April Fools Day?

A: He wanted to tell him he was doing a helluva job.

You know something P-man, let's use your impeachable (did I mean impeccable?) logic in regard to Dick Cheney and his daughter. She's gay so, by all that's holy on Lesbos, her ol' man ought to be a secret cross-dressing transvestite with a crush on big boy Karl Rove. Maybe that's why he likes to be called "Dick," do you think???

At least I still get the same result using your logic: Zero.

Jake: I don't know, or care, whether Clinton ever used cocaine or not. It's not a big deal to me. I was only making the point, first, it's not true that release of medical records by presidential candidates is standard practice; and second, that it would be really silly for Huckabee to lie about something like that, since it's so easy to disprove.

A lot of you have Huckahatred to the extreme. I think it's not even based in his policies so much as it is just a general hatred for his being Republican and popular. I bet you had a good chuckle when you heard how he was locked out of the state capitol by Bill McCuen, and I bet you were red-faced and outraged the day he took office from a disgraced Jim Guy Tucker. How dare that man with an R after his name sully our state capitol?

I was at Boys State the summer that Tucker resigned. There was no love for him, but a lot of admiration for Huck (although that was before the whole "I'm not resigning" thing went down.) To an Arkansan who was young and impressionable and not yet disillusioned by the whole sorry cesspool in Little Rock, it was possible to look up to Huckabee as someone with integrity, and not be blindly partisan. It was also easy to be ashamed for the state, with a convicted felon in the governor's mansion.

I don't care if Huckabee had his stomach stapled or lost the weight snorting crystal meth, as at least one of my friends did before putting a bullet through his head at age 23. But it's ridiculously hypocritical to believe the absolute worst about Huck without question while dismissing any potential rumor about Bill Clinton as hysterical nonsense.

Call me when you develop some semblance of intellectual honesty. And see what you've made me do--this is almost as long as one of DBI's boring screeds!

I think you'll find that I equated nonsense about Clinton with the nonsense about Huckabee in my first response. Does that satisfy your search for intellectual honesty? Why aim for one target when you can shoot them all. (I wonder if that's how Dick Cheney thinks before he fires his weapons.)

I agree with you in your next to last paragraph. What's the difference between those who sling mud and those who paint with a tar brush?

If you want some honesty, I didn't follow Arkansas politics very much until the past few years so any crimes and misdemeanors you wish to level at me prior to that are going to be tossed aside as quite irrelevant but not to say that such conduct wouldn't be true of others.

And, yes, let's neither of us become afflicted with the dreaded DBI syndrome. He's the James Joyce of our crowd and only he seems to be able to handle his overflowing tirade so well. The rest of us will stick to our Hemingway and Wally Hall style.

Intellectual. Honest. Hysterical. Nonsense. Wooo Pigs!

When dealing with the Devil, be very careful when he says, "Pull my tail!"

"HuckAbuck's, before photo looks better than the after photo!?!?"
Posted by: bejeeus

It's true. But I thought once he got off the Velveeta loaves and Snickers bars he wouldn't look so oily. But the blubberectomy just makes him look loose-skinned jowly like old R. Milhouse Nixon, and apparently gave his five o'clock shadow more open space to grow, and now he looks even more like an oily door-to-door Bible dictionary salesman.

off subject but since the political people are watching this string. cnn announced that the fbi has raided sen. ted stevens house in alaska. you don't do that unless it is real serious. it couldn't happen to a nicer guy. one more asshole rethuglican down. maybe he has been hoarding internets tubes somewhere. all i know is the fbi had better have their stuff together before they raid a senators house.

This is the AP's report:

(AP) ANCHORAGE, Alaska Agents from the FBI and Internal Revenue Service on Monday searched the home of U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, an official said.

Investigators arrived at the Republican senator's home in Girdwood shortly before 2:30 p.m. Alaska time, said Dave Heller, FBI assistant special agent.

Heller said he could not comment on the nature of the investigation.

The Justice Department has been looking into the seven-term senator's relationship with a wealthy contractor as part of a public corruption investigation.

jake i did a little more snooping and it seems that stevens did some home remodeling a while back. the bills were paid by him but not before they went through an oil services company that also hired the contractor. the oil services company also plead guilty in march of bribery of local and state officals. it sounds like it may have gone further than local and state because as i said earlier the fbi probably must have pretty strong evidence before raiding the home of a senator who votes on and is in charge of their budget and this one has been there for a long time. it is so fun to watch these implosions happen.

I remember when the (print edition) of the Times used to run their little "Ethics Held Hostage" box about Huckabee. Yet they treated Tucker as some kind of giant martyr. "The Suffering of Jim Guy Tucker" was quite a piece of work (yes, I've been reading the paper since the mid-nineties.)

I just don't understand the obvious hatred for Huck. He wasn't a bad governor.

anybody that tries to declare official and non official press is dangerous. that is bill of rights dangerous. if you can't see that you need to go back to school. someone can be a good guy over a cup of coffee when asking for money but when he starts taking rights away which huck started doing that gets to be very dangerous. when asked questions if it wasn't his way he was a nasty little prick. you forget little things like that.

While we turn to our memories of how papers behaved in the past, one should remember how the grand ol' Arkansas Gazette handled the 1957 Central High crisis and how the current illegitimate hybrid Democrat-Gazette continues to print historical inaccuracies and revisionist tripe about the same period of time. Ethics are not just being held hostage. They are being slaughtered.

"Huckabee was not a bad governor," is about as lukewarm an endorsement one can give the man. He certainly isn't presidential caliber (nor is he alone among the other candidates in such a failing). More and more, the choice seems to come down to who one hates the least rather than the one we like the most. As to Huckabee, his bark is worse than his sound bite. He is George Bush Lite in my book.

How many thousands of children got health insurance thought ARKids First? How many people have benefitted from the improved highways? How many schools and libraries saw a benefit from that tax increase that the Club for Growth loves to bitch about?

It ALWAYS pisses me off when people say he's responsible for Arkansas being 49th in everything. I grew up in this damn state, was born here, and my parents were lifelong Democrats. I met Bill Clinton when I was just a pup in short pants, and my daddy could hold me up in his arms to meet the boy Governor with the wavy brown hair and cowboy boots. He had a decade to drag Arkansas out of the pits, and he gets a free pass, but people never get tired of blaming Huckabee for our economic and educational quagmires.

Yep, what a bastard that Clinton was. He drags America out of the red and into the black moneywise and all the public can think about is how he let his willy make him silly for that Lewinsky filly. The problem with Huckabee is that both sides are true, thus giving you a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde type of leader, one who will stroke you nicely with one hand while bashing you with the other. And, it was obvious that both hands were needed to grab for the money he pandered for.

I'm sure that a Pro vs Con list can be made for Huckabee as well as any other candidate. You and Zonker have already made good contributions to both sides of the list. Someone needs to holler for James B. to toss out a few bon mots for his main man.

I found an interesting site entitled "Should You Be President?" Take the poll and see how well you do. Maybe the wrong people are running for office. You just might be the Presidential Clearing House Sweepstakes winner!! Click on my name and find out if you are a possible winner. (This offer void where prohibited by lack of sufficient funds.)

prouster experience may be the problem. i started seeing arkansas politics as a child when i would go to hog games with my grandfather and faubus. we sat under the pressbox in fayetteville and the state trooper got our hot dogs. i have met each governor since. they are all men. they have had faults but since faubus i have not heard of one who has tried to take rights away from people until huckabee came in. personally when he doesn't get what he wants he takes it without class, worse than any politican in the governors mansion that i can remember, that includes a lot of governors.

Well, I got my fingers and toes crossed.....for a good friend who is currently on the UAMS liguid diet thingy.

He weighed a tad over 500 lbs last summer.....he is down to 315 as of weekend before last.

YES.....185 pounds in a year!

He is planning to go on down to about 250....they say that should be in another 3-4 months.

He has plans of donating the extra loose skin to St Judes in Memphis for skin graft patients.

This is for real......

Why am I crossing my fingers and toes....? Because he needs help in keeping this weight off once he goes back to trying to eat solids. He walks 3 miles a day. He will be 54 yrs old in Sept.

Huck probably did it folks.

Once again, I have to say--I don't have anything against Clinton (although I give credit for the surplus to the Gingrich congresses.) I just don't understand the hatred for someone who isn't really even that right-wing.

Back to the original question. Prouster mentioned "intellectual honesty" and I find the following statement an non-denial of sorts:

""Even if Governor Huckabee had lost weight by having bariatric surgery, there would be no shame in that," says Alice Stewart,.."

She doesn't deny it. I can't decide why she put the modifier on the end "no shame in that". Perhaps not to discourage anyone who cannot lose what's necessary by any other means? I will give her the benefit of doubt.

Then she goes on:
""[But the] fact is that the governor's weight loss program was very well documented by the media. Steve Barnes of Time Magazine interviewed the governor as well as his doctors."

Does anyone recall asking UAMS if he had bypass surgery? No one said he didn't have it and there is the HIPPA spectre hanging over anyone who tells without the patient's express permission, from assistants, nurses, Mds, record keepers, etc. HIPPA is pretty damn thorough and tough on those who reveal medical information without permission or authority. Fines, loss of license, loss of careers can keep anyone quiet. Most of them take it pretty damn seriously. They should.

The final outcome is applaud the guv for shedding the fat and taking up running shoes. I applaud him for his school consolidation efforts and for his role in ARKids. I fault him for not using some of the tobacco settlement money to treat smokers, or establish a state-wide stop smoking program.

I'll chime in. Prouster, I don't see much "hate" directed toward Mike Huckabee on this blog. Most of us just think he deserves scorn for being greedy once he got into office. I don't care how he lost weight, either. In the scope of things, it doesn't matter.
But, you commited a crime when you said that Bill Clinton's medical records would reveal that his septum was destroyed by heavy cocaine use, unless you have direct evidence supporting your statement.
Careful what you say, even on a blog, I know we all get carried away sometimes, but libel is serious business.
Take care.
Goodnight, all, going on vacation for 2 weeks! Yay!

my dislike of huckabee is the way they handled things. they came into office thinking it was their personal candy store. they wanted to name everything in sight after them. do you see much named after the previous governors or senators? the way the hillbillies of the huckabee administration act is embarassing. it is a gee look at me, i am important. you don't put your name on more than 1 thing while you are alive. they say it was the boards of the facility but it was a board appointed by huck. the things appointed boards put hucks and his wifes name on is stupid and crass. you don't have the board buy you gifts with mansion funds and cry foul when you have to give it back. people of class do not do that and you need to step back and look at how people should act.

Every time I write about Huck I kick myself and say that is the very last time. It's a waste of finger muscles and time. It's like writing about Lyndon LaRouche, neither he nor Huckabee matter any more. Like the ugly girl in my senior class who sent in the one good picture ever taken of her and won Bruin Beauty....Huck accidentally fell into the Governor's office during a bad time...it wouldn't happen again in a million years. He should be happy with that and thank God every night for the good luck she gave him many years ago.

This whole thing with NO NO NO NO Senator Ted Stevens is much more important to Americans than a has-been governor of the next to last state. Stevens and his bearded buddy Senator Young have been running a 3 card Monte game out of Alaska for years and it's high time the game was folded....on top their dishonest heads. It's like this.....the government is our business and like owning a little bait shop out on the highway....how many dishonest employees would you allow to work for you? As long as there is one crooked son of a bitch in Washington of either party....we're getting the shaft.

Looks like there are more crooks in politics than in the car repair business. More than steel siding salesmen or cell phone weasels.....and it's got to stop. It was one thing when they just wanted to line their own pockets a little bit, but now they're in charge of lining the pockets of Big Business AND in order to keep the money flowing they have to promote endless war....because war is great for business.

Today my close personal friend (I wish) Michael Moore challenged every candidate running for President to give up their government paid health insurance plans. Give em up....buy your own insurance or do without like the rest of us. I predict we'll hear them talking red Chinese before any of them even pretend to notice Moore's challenge. Though Huckabuck is also 49th on the P contender list he's part of the other America that our politicians have built for themselves. It is a land of milk and honey and free insurance and it's time it stopped! One world, one way of life for all of us!

don't you wish one of the debate questioners would ask how many to raise their hands if they would go on medicare health plan and social security retirement. i doubt the hands would fly up quickly although most of the candidates are millionaires, even the democrats. i was surprised to hear biden to talk about how little he was worth, he must have not been able to steal enough.

this stevens thing may be fun. i said before that i don't think the fbi would go after a senator if they weren't sure. they are risking a lot to piss off somebody like that and miss on the raid. i will bet a lot he resigns very soon. he will be replaced by a rethuglican but that is ok he is so powerful it will weaken them some and he is mainly resopnsible for the bridge to nowhere. dbi didn't he get a bunch of contributions from ft smith from the oil and gas people? it should be fun. we love scandal.

and prouster don't give up on politics even if it is republican. my grandfather became one when regan came in. one of my best friends was head of the republican party once. it was kind of a southern thing at the time. it is kinda like a disease and maybe you will recover.

BlueRidge, there's a concept called "all-purpose public figure." It's basically a defense against libel or slander that holds that if you put yourself out there in the public sphere--such as by running for president--you cannot claim libel against anyone. This is how Jerry Falwell got away with claiming that the Clintons were guilty of murdering Vince Foster in those videos he sold. It's how the tabloids were able to investigate Gary Condit. It's a very common concept.

I'm not guilty of any crime. I could claim that Clinton regularly has incest with Chelsea and there's not a darn thing he could do about it, although if I ever did something that evil, I'd hope he would track me down and break my nose.

all-purpose public figure." It's basically a defense against libel or slander that holds that if you put yourself out there in the public sphere--such as by running for president--you cannot claim libel against anyone<< Prouser

I think what you're trying to arrive at is that the standard for defamation is higher for public figures. Carol Burnett certainly brought suit and won. Politicians have too. You can claim libel, slander (defamation) but the defense against such claims is different for politicians. Privilege is the usual defense against those claims.

If you're not famous, you can be defamed; if you are famous, you can't be defamed. Now that makes a lot of sense. It does sound like that mythical speed limit which none of us are ever supposed to go faster than but many do.
While we're bashing politicians, don't forget those Damnocrats Pryor and Lincoln. Many of you have been none too happy with their cross-party dressing antics.
I wonder of Blanche would consider running for Pres or Veep. Or has the Peter Principle come into play and she has reached her level of incompetence?
Prouster, why risk libel and slander when there are enough real and obviously aggravating issues about these few faux foxes wanting to be put in charge of the national henhouse. And Zonker, why don't they also ask the candidates how many of them would immediately send their sons and daughters to Iraq if given the chance? Or, how many of them would send their child to a public school in a gang neighborhood? Or, how many of them would force their wife to have a baby concieved when they were raped?
Sometimes, one gets the impression that the Miss America beauty contestants get tougher questions than these folks seeking to ruin (I mean run....) our country.
"And now let's meet our next contestant, from Arkansas it's Mike Huckabee!! This svelte public figure is dressed in one of his many Jenning Osborne outfits with a beautiful Lord's Ranch flying symbol pinned to his lapel. Let's test him in the one-liner category. Governor, what did you do to improve your state while in office/"

"Well, I took the Hillary approach. I unbuttoned a few buttons on our public image and revealed some of the hidden assets of our great state."

"Thank you Governor. Yes, ladies and gentleman. That was Mike Huckabee....the man who says he ran a banana republic which was 49th in nearly everything, including IQ and whose answer to world peace can be summed up in one word: Jesus. Do you have any final words, Governor?"

"Don't forget....I believe in Cretin Science and Intelligent Divine! Make God number one and you'll never feel like number two."

" (although I give credit for the surplus to the Gingrich congresses.) "

The credit belongs to the little man with the big ears who scared the sh** out of both parties in 1992.

Good one Jake....pat yourself on the back now!

Just had a big Eye-talian lunch so is it OK if I jest rub my tummy and moan in ecstasy for a while? The Snake family has a strong gustatory tradition and terms such as "robust" and "hearty" and "smooth on the palate" are how we describe our belches rather than our drink.

The cat just stares in blank curiosity when my repast bursts forth in stentorian song and rumbles. It is said that the first sound a baby born into our family makes when the Doc smacks his wee bottom is a healthy burp. Many a Prince of Araby has sought our mealtime secrets but to no avail. I tried to teach Mike Huckabee how to belch the Chattanooga ChooChoo but he never got it right and I think that's why he lost the talent contest. He just didn't understand how to properly combine eructation and elocution skills for a harmonious sound.

The ol' Huck had the stomach for it.

I want some of what you're smokin', Jake. What a roll.

I know a person who has followed the Baptist Health diet program for 95% of his meals and has lost over 100 lbs. in 9 months. I know surgery was not involved. He buys the food and does the exercises as prescribed by Baptist. Results: Increased energy and significant decrease in medicines.