NOT ME!

I never groped a woman or did any of those other things that are flashing across the news outlets every day.  True enough, I never had a “real” job, at least not one in an office environment, but the idea of invading a person’s privacy in such a manner is just foreign to me.  I mean, it’s not like I’m constantly fighting off the urge to grope, like an alcoholic fighting off the urge to knock back a bottle of Schnapps.  

And what about the other men in the workplace, the non-gropers? Why don’t they explain to the gropers that what they are doing is just not acceptable?

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We need two things here. We need all the non-gropers to stand up and say, “NOT ME.” Then we need them to take the gropers aside and enlighten those Neanderthals.

David Rose

Hot Springs

From the web

In response to the Nov. 6 Arkansas Blog post, “Supreme Court refuses to hear Mike Maggio’s appeal”:

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It’s a shame he only got 10 years. I wonder what the parole possibilities are? He won’t serve enough time, in my opinion, for the incredible abuse of trust given a judge. He’s contributed to the downfall of the entire justice system. Here’s hoping that his income is attached for the rest of his life to pay off the civil case.

Perplexed

Shouldn’t he have to serve extra time for showing what an a-hole he is? Remember geaux tigers?

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Maxifer

There is no parole in the federal system, Perplexed, so he will serve all of his time, less a little bit (matter of a few months at most) off of that if he behaves himself. This is what is so great about federal sentencing vis-a-vis state ones. In the federal cases, you know how much time a person is going to serve, whereas in state sentencing, you have to divide the sentence handed down by either one-sixth, one-third, one-half or 70 percent, depending on the severity of the crime.

plainjim

In response to the Nov. 5 Arkansas Blog post, “More than 20 dead in mass shooting in Texas church”:

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Dear Sutherland, how are those thoughts and prayers working for y’all?

Vanessa

Vanessa, what a heartless comment.

Downtowner

Eagerly anticipating the athleticism from the usual sources as they bend, twist and turn to keep from calling this, like the Vegas massacre, an act of terrorism, yet speak with such rapid assurance when the perp is identified as having one of those funny names.

During the interregnum, before such is revealed, it’s “thoughts & prayers” down the line from the blowhards and puffers.

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tsallernarng

For those who disliked Vanessa’s earlier post, explain to me, precisely, what benefit has ever accrued to the victims, as opposed to the self-indulgently thoughtful and prayerful, from thoughts and prayers.

Silverback66

Ho hum. Just part of the daily price of no coherent gun policy in the good old U.S.A. No amount of prayer will change that reality. Gotta wonder if our elected leaders see such mass shooting events as entertainment because they sure as hell aren’t lifting so much as a little finger to do anything to change the status quo.

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Damn shame, too. Maybe one of us on this blog will be in the next batch of mass victims. We can call it U.S.A. Roulette, just with more firepower and far more dead and wounded.

Oh, and where were the good guys with the guns we always hear will stop a bad guy with a gun like this? Or did Texas confiscate all the guns, and that news just hasn’t percolated across the border yet?

Sound Policy

Just decided to buy a gun this week. Guess this is not the place for a recommendation on what kind to get.

Screen name taken

What makes me most sad about any of the mass shootings is that they even happen to begin with and that none of the perpetrators are being captured alive. The last mass shooting I can remember where the shooter was captured alive was the during the Planned Parenthood murders in Colorado Springs in 2015. Something is deeply wrong in our U.S.A. I believe in the right to bear arms, but I also believe that gun-worship is empowering the mentally ill to commit mass murder. So many hateful paranoid men thinking an assault rifle is going to right all the imaginary wrongs they feel have been done against them.

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Artificial Intelligence

In defense of Vanessa, some version of the point she was trying to make has been all over Facebook, Twitter and the blogosphere all afternoon and this evening. Maybe she was the first one to “go there” on the blog, but she is definitely not the first to say it. It was out there well before it showed up here. People are tired of hearing “thoughts and prayers” and then that’s the end of it. Anyone can say that. It’s beginning to ring hollow and I cringe whenever I hear it now. If “thoughts and prayers” help in any way, how could this have happened in the most holy of places?

 Something evil has been unleashed and is running amok in the U.S.A. I have no idea how we are going to find our way back to civilization, but I’m sure it will take more than a catch phrase to fix this mess.

mountaingirl

Thoughts and prayers never solved any crimes. It is just an excuse, a damned cover-up for insensitive politicians who don’t want to solve what is one of the biggest — if not the single biggest — dangers of our modern society: the uninhibited access to weapons capable of mass killings. Politicians hide behind their thoughts and prayers while people are being killed. This same thing could happen at my church. We don’t take any security measures because everyone should be welcomed to the house of the Lord. Speaking of “thoughts and prayers,” how many of us really believe that the politicians are sincere in their offering them up?

plainjim

In response to the Nov. 5 Arkansas Blog post, “Honeymoon’s over for Sarah Huckabee Sanders”:

Dear Media, please keep it up. Sarah Huckabee upstaging her boss will simply shorten her time in the spotlight, and the administration will have to reach even lower for a spokesperson.

Vanessa

Better yet, Vanessa, if our world ever regains it sanity then maybe she’ll never have a decent job again.

wannabee conservative

I notice lately she’s taken to occasional attempted humor. Her jokes fall flat just like her dad’s … but without the outhouse flavor.

JB

Do you Kool-Aid drinkers ever get tired of tearing down successful people just because you oppose their political views? Guess they are OK as long as they agree with your views but look out if they do not. What a collective bunch of phonies.

Razorblade

So, the willingness to lie to the nation on a daily basis meets the description of “successful”? The ability to ignore the voice inside yourself that whispers “you’re not telling the truth” is admirable? 

Such is the thought process of a party-before-country Republican.  The blog members can expect to be chastised by Mr. Razorblade for criticizing Manafort, Gates, Flynn and Flynn Jr., when their chances to lie in the spotlight come along, soon.

Emersum Biggins

Prediction: Barring total implosion, she keeps this gig up just long enough to declare for Boozman’s seat when he formally announces he’s not running for re-election.

Pygface

In response to the Nov. 3 Arkansas Blog post “State tourism official warns of economic damage from ‘bathroom bill’ “:

Unfortunately, the political atmosphere is one reason we’ve decided to move back to our home state. Won’t miss the regression of women’s rights, the push for more religion interference in public schools and the narrow-minded views of LGBTQ citizens. What ever happened to the Arkansas of David Pryor and Dale Bumpers? Instead we get Rutledge, Rapert and Mr. Re-Homing Harris. Truly sad.

Irishgirl2012

I just moved back to Arkansas from the bluest city in one of the bluest states in these united. To those of you bemoaning the present political climate in Arkansas, oh, and let me add J. William Fulbright and William J. Clinton, let me offer this nugget of consolation: The people and policies that so bedevil you in the present day will be swept away by the inevitable tide of progress. The past that the others are trying to regain is not coming back. The present, such as it is, will be transformed into the future that is evident in the more progressive societies in our country and world.

Inequities persist, but many of those prejudices of our past have been eroded in ways that may not be appreciated. Mixed race families might be a bit odd in some corners of Arkansas, but are not illegal and for the most part do not attract all that much attention. The public persons who formerly hid in the closet who have come out, well, that does not attract all that much attention, really no big deal, at least if they stick to consenting adults.

Yes, a rational, educated and thoughtful people should not take so long to do the right thing, but if you are smart enough to realize things should be better, you should be smart enough to realize that most of our fellow Americans, perhaps especially Arkansans, are not. Take some solace in the fact that Jeff Sessions, Donny Trump and Harvey Weinstein, among others, are not from Arkansas. We begat Johnny Cash, Jim Jones, Douglas Blackmon and Jeff Nichols. Take some pride in their works, and don’t take any crap from others, and surely don’t crap all over yourself.

Get to work, register, think and vote. Go get ’em.

deadseasquirrel

In response to a Nov. 1 Arkansas Blog post about Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ defense of the weird characterization of the Civil War by White House Chief of Staff John Kelly:

Sarah may be dishonest, but she is not dumb, as many here try to portray her. She is an expert in the mechanics and the machinations of a political campaign. As White House press secretary, she is still running a political campaign. She did a good job managing John Boozman’s 2010 campaign for the Senate, as well as her daddy’s go-nowhere presidential campaign in 2012. She is politically savvy, and knows that politicians are rarely punished for lying. She also knows how to avoid critics. She simply quit communicating with the Arkansas Times, took the Times off the list of media receiving notices and never returned Max’s phone calls, according to what he has posted previously. Politics is a duplicitous game at its best. She knows how to practice duplicity very well.

plainjim

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