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Friday, November 30, 2007 - 18:28:42
Tom Terrific -- UPDATE
UPDATE: Auburn puts its offer on the table. Going to take serious jack to take Tommy T. away. And here's another Bama account. Our earlier writing:
Coach Tuberville, the Pork plate du jour, is covered in great detail -- newspapers, blogs -- from the Alabama/Auburn point of view at this site.
By the way, though Tuberville may yet be the pick, the deal has NOT been done yet. The ironclad $6 million buyout provision is one problem. It is also possible that Tuberville is using this process to win additional investments in facilities and staff at Auburn.
UPDATE: $37 million, 10-year deal?!? Gotta do me some coaching. And, this just in: He's dodging Alabama reporters.
Public safety alert
I have a semi-confirmed report that Vice President Dick Cheney will be jetting into Arkansas early Sunday for some duck hunting in the Stuttgart area and leaving the same day. Go duck yourself, Dick.
There went the judge
Cycle Breakers meeting today at the Statehouse Convention center. That's the private probation program established by Judge Willard Proctor and which has figured in a critical state audit of the judge's probation program.
Judge Proctor hightailed for the door with a cellphone in his ear when he saw our tape recorder and notebook, but City Director Joan Adcock was more accommodating, ushering us past the stern-looking men with handcuffs on their belts who barred the casement when the reporter tried to enter. In attendance: around 75 probationers.
After the administration of a short reading assessment test, possibly connected to Judge Proctor’s requirement that probationers read and give reports on four books a year from an approved reading list, Adcock led a line of attendees next door, where she delivered a rousing pep talk on interview decorum. Afterwards, they crowded around as she handed out applications for local manufacturers, hotels and burger joints.
As the applications were being filled out, Adcock took advantage of the lull to tell the reporter that her 12-year-old Hope Center, Inc., the University Ave. non-profit center that had provided clothing, a food pantry, education, employment advice and training for the homeless and working poor, will be closing this week. The state cut off funding for Hope Center in the last session, saying they preferred instead to handle services to the poor “in house.”
Adcock spoke up for the social programs offered by Cycle Breakers, saying that the cost of continuing the program was much less than putting each of the participants in jail. On the issue of whether Cycle Breakers should be financially divorced from Proctor’s court, Adcock said that the fate of her Hope Center was proof that services for the poor need to be creative in finding funds. As for the often-complicated fine structure imposed by Proctor on participants who miss Cycle Breakers meetings or otherwise run afoul of the rules: “It’s teaching them responsibility. One way you teach adults is through penalty. We don’t park in the no parking spot because it’s going to cost us money.”
Proctor has not been returning our calls about an out-of-state retreat for his office for which he sought public money; the firing of an employee who said health problems prevented her attendance; a question about the participation of public employees in the private Cycle Breakers activities, and other issues.
-- David Koon
Tax increase
A reader reminds me of a little-noticed tax increase adopted by the last 2003 legislature, but just now about to take effect (thanks Steve Harrelson for correction). It removes the $2,500 cap on application of local sales taxes, except on sales of cars, boats, planes and mobile homes. For example, as the illustration shown on the state's information sheet indicates, a $3,000 plasma TV in Fayetteville now costs about $16 more because the full local sales taxes apply.
(Hey, here's a bonus for oppo researchers. Another tax increase to lay on the Huck.)
Domestic terrorism -- UPDATE
A man who may have strapped a bomb to his body has taken hostages in a Hillary Clinton campaign office in New Hampshire. She is not there, but the incident apparently prompted her cancellation of a scheduled speech elsewhere.
UPDATE: It's over. Nobody hurt. Deranged guy taken into custody.
On the trail
Readers mentioned this yesterday. Here's a link to NPR's "Political Junkie," a 30-minute discussion of the Mike Huckabee candidacy including participation by John Brummett. The Club for Growth is touting it for Brummett's purported agreement that Huckabee is no economic conservative.
Here, a Weekly Standard writer notes the Huckabee surge but also writes of the problem that remains from the big-money backbone of the Republican Party.
While the national parties don't exactly have Star Chambers complete with powerful insiders wearing monk's hoods and pulling party strings from a candlelit secret chamber under either the AFL-CIO or Halliburton (depending on the side in question), there is a leadership elite within each party. It is mostly felt on the finance side with big fundraisers and bundling lobbyists buzzing among themselves. These people are mostly pragmatists and many are in DC's professional influence business.
The talk now will be about Huckabee and it won't be good. Most Republican mega-donors don't like Christian candidates. Such candidates have a bad tendency when nominated to bring both general election wipe-outs and problems with big donors' wives, who tend to be pro-choice and socially closer to the local country club than the neighborhood fundamentalist church. Huckabee, with his purist's stand on social issues and a half-baked tax plan with little appeal outside GOP primaries, doesn't look like a winner in a general election, especially at a time when the Republican party is beset with terrific image problems. This is a tough-minded crowd that would rather shoot a slow horse than ride one out of the convention.
While these forces cannot for certain stop Huckabee if he is able to catch fire beyond Iowa, they can make his task much harder.
Don't ask, don't tell
A new push -- led by a former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff -- to repeal "don't ask, don't tell" and end any limitation to service in the armed forces on account of sexual orientation.
Although the signers of the letter are high-ranking, none are of the stature of Gen. John M. Shalikashvili, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff when the policy was adopted and who now argues for its repeal. General Shalikashvili refocused attention on the issue earlier this year when he wrote that conversations with military personnel had prompted him to change his position.
The current generation of Americans entering the armed services have proved to him “that gays and lesbians can be accepted by their peers,” the general wrote in an Op-Ed article published in The New York Times on Jan. 2.
“I now believe that if gay men and lesbians served openly in the United States military, they would not undermine the efficacy of the armed forces,” General Shalikashvili wrote. “Our military has been stretched thin by our deployments in the Middle East, and we must welcome the service of any American who is willing and able to do the job.”
Junket payment nixed UPDATE
Happy trails
Beebe makes his pick
Joking about Jesus
OH's notepad
Precarious perch
Lawyer indicted
Republican repartee UPDATE IV
Nail gun treatment needed ...
The perfect coach
Manana
Huckabee homers
Ok, ok
Drinking and driving
Better cab service
Sound like anyone you know?
Police beat
Air crash deaths
Like it is
God and man in Iowa
That gas bonanza
Pistol-packing papa
More mush from the wimps
Just ducky -- UPDATE
No pooch kicks at PA
Deterrent effect?
Police beat -- UPDATE
A slogan for Huckabee
The bandwagon effect
Nutt to Ole Miss
Campaign on the web
Fresh, hot Nutts
The revolving door
Nutt news -- UPDATE
High on a TIF
Cops and robbers
The racial divide
Hullabaloo
Catching up
Bus crash
The Nutt news conference
Mike Huckabee and foreign policy
The line is open
Nuttiness
Beebe and the death penalty
A voice from the right on Mike Huckabee
Gambling's slippery slope
It's all yours
Guilty until proven innocent
Wal-Mart engages
The wacky world of politics
News and comment
Well
Campaign notes
A mighty wind
Beautiful morning
Black Friday
I'm thankful for ...
Turkey day
Bad moon rising
Googling Huck
Hump night
Food news
It's too darn hot
Beebe study group
Police beat
The Huckabee record
Let the smoke belch -- UPDATE
In port
A movie for the season
On the trail
Early night
The stem cell debate
That jingle you hear ...
Now he tells us
Bloodsucker chronicles
Never underestimate the American voter
West Memphis results -- UPDATE
Another gambling raid
The death penalty
The religious test
Huck for veep
Close but no debate
The charter scam
The new Capital
Below the surface
Who needs football?
Main Street memories
Busted flush UPDATE
Mayor Hays' folly
Mike Huckabee: For states' rights before he was against states' rights
Huck and Chuck
Find your candidate
Sorry and thanks
Point of personal privilege
Grin and Bear it
Well, sure
Campaign notes
Woo pig
Gambling guru
Face time
Basic tailgating
Time wounds all heels
I say it's soybeans ...
Nutt: Stick a fork in him
The next speaker
The invisible man
Compassionate conservative
The Social Security 'crisis'
Guest lecturer
Relief, Republican style
Documents roll in -- UPDATE
Clinton money rolls in
Mix it up
Police beat
Official secrets
Huck's surge UPDATE
Philanthropy update
I'll go with Buffett
Life after Frank -- UPDATE II
Here we go again
Controlling information
Stealth fighter
The Nutt saga
The question
Presidential talk
Mike Huckabee's whopper du jour
Hypocrisy alert
Wanted: a noodler
He won't buy five copies for his mother
Another good idea dead
Woodpecker extinct UPDATE
Hunting death
Vote suppression
Shocker of the day
'Flaying seminar'
You want polls?
Sports rap
Oh never mind
The Mexican consulate
Right to Life taps dead candidate
Coody for Congress
Industry news
Morgan retires from Acxiom
Wal-Mart gets the message
On the other hand ...
Lame excuses
Duck and cover
The 'race' for Senate
Huckabee is right
Invasion of the body snatchers -- UPDATE II
Both sides now
The 'frameworks'
Stop the presses
The God squad
Tourist report
Who stole our country?
Mailer and the Times
Up with Hope
A name on a wall
Here's looking at you
Out of pocket
In praise of Huckabee
Taking athletics to the next level
Friday night fights
Death at the Zoo
Do as he says ...
Tickets still available
How the rich get richer
Dust off your bike
Janet joins the hunt
A lottery's slippery slope
Huckabee bandwagon UPDATE III
Huckabee: lying again
Photo rule in abeyance
Would you advertise this?
The eyes of Texas are upon us
Legislative races
Is it sweeps week?
Huckabee ploy: 'Kindly' embarrassing
About right
And speaking of charter schools ..
Conventional wisdom
Let gay protection begin
Let the gay bashing begin
Effective sex ed
Huckabee: 'Jesus wept'
The blue tide
The Huckabee team: Drop one
Bro. Mike's traveling salvation show
Fun with numbers
Here comes the racino
Calling all 16 percenters -- UPDATE
Press group to sue
At the archives
Library impact
Arkie Repubs heart Mike
Huck, Thompson mix it up
Thief in chief
Price of entry
How the web makes a difference
Bush beats Nixon
Racial profiling
Charter school advances -- UPDATED
Good news on smoking
Lottery laughs
The money game
What's with Sheffield?
Spotted...
One for the record books
Spirit in the sky
Our Mr. Brooks
School for scandal
A lick and a promise
Who owns high school sports -- UPDATED
Unintended consequences
Where's our lottery?
Winter wonderland
A challenge for Boozman
Church and state
Time for change
Gang tackling
Boozman and 'Dog'
Burns Park shooting
The great pumpkin
The nation's mood
Sweet silence
Right 30 percent of the time
Open season
How' about them Hogs?
Booze you can use
Message for Mike: Truth helps
Tax and spend
Official secrets
The Huck report
Come to order, class
Late but ..
ICU shut
White line fever
House candidate
Youth movement
The rest of the story
Counting the money
Former legislator dies
Shooting victim
More important things to do
Alltel executive suite
Huckabee's home team: MIA
Consumer protection
Advanced chemistry
Here comes the bride
Catching up
Watch that trench coat
West Memphis 3 Press Conference
A program note
Not so much freedom of information
Shuffling to the oldies
Huckabee: Calling all homeboys
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