State Sen. Gilbert Baker won today's straw poll at the Republican Party of Arkansas' annual meeting held today in Hot Springs. He garnered about 35% of the votes cast. Second place was businessman and Mike Huckabee's 1992 campaign manager Curtis Coleman with' [...]
The straw poll in Hot Springs today for the Republican primary U.S. Senate race (some notable potential candidates -- Stanley Reed and Jim Holt -- were absent) has been completed.
Sen. Gilbert Baker by a hair.
Twitterers report the vote breakdown: Sen. Gilbert Baker, 35 percent; Curtis Coleman, 33%; Conrad Reynolds, 23%; Tom Cox [...]
The Arkansas Times obtained some preliminary engineering plans for the Rock Island Bridge which, according to former president Bill Clinton, will be renovated in 2010. Here, you can see high resolution images of the plans including the overall elevation of the entire bridge and the plans for what [...]
Washington newspaper reports the arrest of an Arkansas parolee wanted on a burglary charge in Arkansas. I suspect we'll be asking for him back.
SPEAKING OF ARKANSAS THUGS: Backgrounding of accused cop killer Maurice Clemmons continues. It would appear he wasn't out of jail long in Arkansas (after a [...]
Lots of BCS implications today.
SEC Championship: Florida v. Alabama (3:00 p.m CBS) Big XII Championship: Texas v. Nebraska (7:00 p.m. ABC) ACC Championship: Georgia Tech v. Clemson (7:00 p.m. ESPN) Big East Championship: Cincinnati v. Pittsburgh (11:00 a.m. ABC) Conference USA Championship: Houston v. East Carolina (11:00 a.m. ESPN2)Okay, the only people that [...]
Montana Sen. Max Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, apparently nominated his girlfriend to be a U.S. Attorney. She eventually withdrew her name and someone else was appointed to the post.
As you will recall, Mr. Baucus is one of the leading Democratic players - if not the leading [...]
I was reminded this morning of this letter to former Saline County prosecutor Robert Herzfeld in response to a letter he sent to then Governor Mike Huckabee criticizing his clemency process.
It was only a matter of time before someone took the time to parody Mr. Huckabee’s [...]
Sen. Max Baucus, the leading Democrat in the Senate health debate, now has a new headache to deal with:
He apparently proposed his girlfriend for appointment as a U.S. attorney in Montana. Didn't happen for a variety of reasons, lots of cover offered, etc. Doesn't look good.
Speaking of girlfriend troubles [...]
John Brummett reassures his 79-year-old mother that Democrats aren't out to cut her Medicare. That she'd ask -- and that Democrats have utterly failed at communicating what they are about -- is the story of the moment in the health care debate. Probably the permanent story.
Obama’s message seems only [...]
When you've become a sitting duck for national cartoonists ...
MEANWHILE: Garrick Feldman writes that Huck is the worst Ark. governor ever. Why? Six people wouldn't be dead if Wayne Dumond and Maurice Clemmons hadn't been freed in response to his actions.
' [...]Scott Miller notes that, unless he resigns or something, Alderman Sam Baggett is scheduled to be acting mayor at the next meeting of the NLR City Council. The real mayor will be gallivanting in Denmark. Baggett would preside 15 hours before his arraignment on federal felony charge for peddling [...]
I think former Sen. George Hopkins is doing a good job trying to clean up the mess at the Arkansas Teacher Retirement System, where corruption and old boyism held sway for so many years and hundreds of millions of dollars were at issue.
Among the improvements he's made' [...]
Yeah, it’s still terrible, but economic forecasters predicted that we’d have another miserable jobs report, and they were wrong. The Bureau of Labor Statistics revised employment figures from September and October actually the recent report constitutes the best report we’ve seen since the recession began. Unemployment dropped to 10%, [...]
In another smart political move, Sen. Blanche Lincoln took on health insurance executive compensation today. She’s introduced an amendment that would cap the business deduction for health insurance executives at $400,000. While it’s still a lot, it’s down from $1 million, and Ms. Lincoln states this will save $65 million [...]
What? Has Sen. Blanche Lincoln begun to run for re-election?
She'll have a news conference today to announce an amendment to limit the deductibility of insurance executive salaries as a business expense to $400,000 each, down from $1 million. She claims this will save government $65 million a year.
Earlier today, she' [...]
This was strongly rumored during the last round of job cuts at the Hawker Beechcraft aircraft completion facility at Little Rock National Airport.
Roby Brock at Talk Business says a statement is coming this evening from Dassault Falcon, another major aircraft facility at the airport, and he expects it to [...]
Time and again we’ve heard Arkansas Senator Blanche Lincoln iterate that her concerns about health insurance reform involve two things: (1) expanding the role of government and (2) fiscal irresponsibility.
The first is an interesting way of setting forth opposition to a “public option” whereby the government would offer its own [...]
President Obama has nominated Arkansas Appeals Court Judge Price Marshall for a federal district court judgeship. Judge Bill Wilson is taking senior status.
News release from Sens. Lincoln and Pryor on the jump. Chip Welch and Mariam Hopkins also had been suggested as potential nominees.
Marshall was considered a lock for this [...]
Tim Pawlenty cheesily took advantage of Mike Huckabee's clemency decision in the cop-killer case by suggesting he'd never do such a thing.
Mitt Romney inserted the knife in Huck much more effectively, without seeming to do so. Why, Romney told an interviewer, he has great empathy for Huckabee. He thinks the [...]
Yes, I'd rather fly to Copenhagen than attend a North Little Rock City Council meeting at which next year's difficult budget will be discussed.
But, I'm not the mayor of North Little Rock.
Argenta News says maximum boss Pat Hays will be chomping danishes on an 11-day Copenhagen junket when an indictment-depleted [...]
No word if white smoke rose from the chimney of the Marianna farmhouse at which former Farm Bureau president Stanley Reed was supposed to reach a family Thanksgiving decision on running for U.S. Senate as a Republican.
But an associate of the people who'd be his main money men -- real' [...]
My friend Eric did it at a Hastings in Norman, Oklahoma, and I know a lot of others did it back in Northwest Arkansas, too. But I have to question everyone's intelligence if you camped out in the freezing cold in order' [...]
A clean water advocate writes to say the state Pollution Control and Ecology Commission has removed from its agenda today a proposed rule to limit surface discharge of wastewater in the Lake Maumelle watershed, a proposed rule developed in a watershed management plan aimed at preserving the major water [...]
I'm not going to explain this much, because I know school issues have a limited audience.
But I want to post here Chris Heller's brief for the Little Rock School District to the Arkansas Board of Education on why unlimited open enrollment charter schools in Pulaski County are a contravention of [...]
Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee gave an interview to Christianity Today and was asked about former Alaska governor Sarah Palin and her political future. Ms. Palin was in Fayetteville, Arkansas today signing copies of her book.
A lot of people compare you and Sarah Palin as conservative Christian candidates. What [...]
The state Supreme Court today upheld, on a 4-3 vote, a Pulaski County robbery conviction of Hutson Burks despite unanimous agreement that the prosecutor's office used testimony obtained improperly by promise of reduction of a sentence already in effect for the critical witness. It sharply criticized the prosecuting attorney's office, which struck the deal, and [...]
http://mediamatters.org/res…
more about "Quick Fact: Beck falsely claims no jo…", posted with vodpod
Posted in Uncategorized [...] The House today voted 225-200 (all Republicans were nays) to prevent the federal estate tax from expiring next month and crippling the budget. This will keep in place a maximum 45 percent estate tax on estates valued (after deductions for debt, etc.) at $3.5 million, or $7 million for [...]
A new poll from Rasmussen shows Sen. Blanche Lincoln trailing all potential GOP challengers.
Sadly, 56% of Arkansans are strongly opposed to health insurance reform despite reports that it would put more money in their pockets by lowering health insurance premiums.
As I’ve said before, with no one willing to be [...]
Daily Kos has polled a potential Blanche Lincoln-Bill Halter matchup. (Kos is a progressive blogger, but his polling operation is straightforward and has a good track record.)
It's 42-26 Lincoln with 32 percent undecided. Up for grabs in other words, and that's with near universal name recognition for Lincoln. Halter [...]
Arkansas residents would save between $236 and $433 a year in premiums (that is a 7.6% to 14.1%) and a family would save between $1,157 and $1,170 a year in health insurance premiums (that is a 14% to 14.2%) if the Senate health insurance reform bill were enacted into law, [...]
Sen. Blanche Lincoln is hard at work trying to improve health legislation with amendments. Such as one to gut state insurance regulation, as per the desire of the health insurance industry.
Maybe there's a method to her madness. If you believe the polls, which say the Arkansas public sides with insurance [...]
Charles Johnson isn't the only blogger leaving the right-wing behind. Andrew Sullivan, who blogs for The Atlantic (and formerly for Time), announced on his blog that he is breaking ranks with the right, as well. Among his reasons for leaving the right:I' [...]
Three people have been put on leave on account of the White House gate crashers.
Am I wrong to not be as worked up about this as the rest of the media world seems to be?
Someday, perhaps, I'll relate an incident of which I have knowledge of a person entering a' [...]
David Mitchell, writing in the Arkansas Law Review, argues that a circuit judge used too narrow a standard for considering post-conviction relief based on new evidence in the West Memphis Three murder case. Mitchell concludes that a new trial was warranted. Let's hope the state Supreme Court reads the [...]
The Arkansas Realtors Association's monthly housing report for October is the best since the boom days of 2005, says ARA's Ethan Nobles. Credit the first-time home buyer tax credit for the excitement, but it has been expanded and extended, so perhaps some more better times are ahead.
The number of houses sold [...]
Our Damsel in Distress, Norma Bates, has opened voting on five finalists in her Huckabee Haiku contest.
The full background is at Norma's place.
But if you want to go straight to voting, here's the link.
[...]Another Rasmussen poll, another round of bad numbers for Sen. Blanche Lincoln against any Republican. Arkies don't like the health care legislation either (not that many of them could define it except as defined by interest group advertising.)
Lincoln better start campaigning. And somebody better start effectively pitching the truth' [...]
I know it's an old commercial (old as in a few weeks, so I guess it's not that old, it just isn't as relevant now), but it proves my point from earlier today about Sen. Lincoln's loyalties to the health care industry' [...]
Sen. Lincoln, are you there? Are you listening to what the people want? If so, you would know that according to a new poll conducted by Thomson Reuters, 60% of respondents want a public option as part of a health care [...]
