News and Views on Politics, Policy and More
Odds are I won’t be doing too much more blogging today—I’ve got some work to wrap up, and then I’m taking Arkansas Project Girlfriend (APG) out for a big New Years Eve to-do. She’s always complaining that I never take her anywhere fancy for dinner, so her head’s just gonna pop when she sees this Olive Garden coupon.
So if I don’t talk to you again, Happy New Year and all that.
A swell column today from David Sanders, who goes all factual on the absurd scam that is the Arkansas Governor’s Commission on Global Warming. Sanders does a little digging into the advocacy group behind the commission’s recommendations, and suggests that Arkansas taxpayers are being played for suckers:
If enacted into law, there is little evidence that the group’s 54 policies would have any appreciable affect on global warming, but instead would drain money from the state budget and stifle much needed economic growth by making Arkansas one of the only states in the region to adopt a new set of punitive and confiscatory environmental policies.
You can read all of Sanders’ column here. Or if you’re like me, preferring lively, colorful moving pictures to dense argumentation (reading is hard!), you can just watch this, which pretty much stands as the definitive treatise on climate change hysteria:
Democratic Rep. Lindsley Smith, noted below for her advocacy of the ERA, will also be renewing her push to establish a “Thomas Paine Day” in Arkansas during the ’09 session, says the Arkansas News Bureau’s ace reporter John Lyon.
Lawmakers voted down the Paine Day proposal in the ’07 session after GOP Rep. Sid Rosenbaum took issue with Paine’s critical writings on Christianity.
Which means this is as good a time as any for an Arkansas Project flashback from August 2008: Mac Campbell, an attorney and former Democratic candidate for Arkansas treasurer, published here a spirited defense of the legislature’s move in striking down the Paine Day observance. Check it out.
(Also check out the debate in the comments section on the post, which is intelligent and informed. This makes it completely unlike the typical debate in the Arkansas Project comments section, which isn’t so much “debate” as it is me, Br549, Bill from Sheridan, DumbArkie, Cameron Bluff and Fourche River Rex making asses of ourselves.)
Pryor and Lincoln flex Senate muscle, via U.S. mail
Take a Letter: Senators Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor are among senators who have indicated via a strongly worded letter that indicted Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich shouldn’t attempt to appoint anyone to fill Barack Obama’s seat. Like he did yesterday. Because there’s nothing that a villainously corrupt politico fears like a strongly worded letter. (Arkansas News Bureau)
ERA DOA?: Dem state Rep. Lindsley Smith pledges to bring back her push for the Equal Rights Amendment in the ’09 session. While she’s bringing back unnecessary things from the early ’80s, I hope she’ll get “WKRP in Cincinnati” back on the air. I loved that show. (Arkansas News Bureau)
Plant Science: A Rhode Island manufacturing concern with interests in Arkansas will move two plants from Newport to Pocahontas. In a related story, I’m thinking of moving two plants over closer to the window. These peace lilies just aren’t getting enough light. (AP)
A 24-year-old Kentucky man (with a name that leads me to believe he may not be a Kentucky native; I don’t know, I just get this feeling) is in police custody after he allegedly drove a golf cart through a storefront to steal beer:
Police arrested 24-year-old Alejandro Cortez-Sanchez of Florence, Ky., after he allegedly crashed into the El Alamo Store on Central Avenue on Christmas Day. A police report says officers responded to a burglary call and found the store’s front doors broken in.
The officers spotted a suspect motoring away in a golf cart and gave chase. The suspect began throwing beer bottles at the police cruisers as they followed for several blocks.
The remaining beer was returned to the store owner. And if you’re in the market for a new golf cart, you might check out the next Hot Springs Police Auction.
Demi Moore: No, not that kind of cougar.
Cougar Watch: An extensive Arkansas Democrat-Gazette story suggests that, despite numerous reported sightings, there aren’t many cougars in the Natural State, but they obviously haven’t seen your mom. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)
Union Label: Newly minted blogger John Brummett digs up a scooplet with the report that state Sen. Gilbert Baker is on the board of a national group fighting union-backed card check legislation by amending state constitutions. We had a little union trouble recently at Arkansas Project World Headquarters, when the boys in the boiler room started talking about organizing. They eventually dropped that nonsense after I announced I was withholding coverage for their “black lung” treatments. (Brummett’s Blog)
The Sweet Smell of Huck-cess: National pub ranks Mike Huckabee’s unexpected win in the Iowa Republican caucuses as a top political upset of 2008. Number two was my big win over Blake Rutherford at the Annual Arkansas Bloggers Charity Bake-Off, where my “Cinnamon Dandies” recipe won the day over his “Blaked Alaska” dish. (Politico)
When Lisa Torti pulled her co-worker Alexandra Van Horn from a just-wrecked car at 1:30 a.m. after a night of Halloween revelry, perhaps she thought she was just trying to help. But this being 21st-century America, Van Horn could have only one response: She sued.
There’s some question about who really did right here. Torti’s lawyer says she was just trying to remove Van Horn from a zone of danger that had been created by a 45-mph collision with a lamppost; Torti says she saw smoke and liquid coming from the car and feared that an explosion was imminent.
Van Horn’s lawyer says she was yanked out “like a rag doll,” left near the supposedly smoking car, and suffered permanent and debilitating damage to her spinal cord such that she is now paralyzed for life as a result of Torti’s assistance.
The California Supreme Court ruled earlier this month that the lawsuit can go to trial. This case has set off a firestorm of commentary, because it raises the question of whether careless rescuers should be subject to legal liability—and, therefore, lawsuits.
I think generally they should not be, which is the reason I wrote and helped pass Act 683 of 2007 (link opens as PDF file), which will prevent the kind of trial about to take place in California from ever occurring in Arkansas. In my opinion, this is a hard policy choice but a most appropriate one.
Former Gov. Mike Huckabee issued the following statement today about the controversy surrounding his former campaign manager Chip Saltsman, who finds himself in a mess o’ trouble in his bid to head the Republican National Committee after circulating a parody CD that some decry as racially insensitive.
Chip should have been more careful in his selection of Christmas gifts, but no one who knows him would ever suggest that he in any way would purposely disparage other people. Chip knows how sensitive such issues are. It shouldn’t be the main factor in the RNC race.
The election of Barack Obama is not only historic for our country but it is something all Americans, not just Democrats, should celebrate. As I have said many times the election of Mr. Obama is significant not because of his race or in spite of it, but with indifference to it. He was not my choice for President, but he will be MY President over the next four years and I will support him personally and pray for his success. I will certainly disagree with him at times, but I pledge that my disagreements with him will be over his policy decisions and not aimed at him personally. I ask that all of you will join with me in doing that.
Huck’s stepping rather gingerly there, no? You can listen to the song here and judge for yourself whether it’s offensive or not.
Meanwhile, the GOP Democratic Speaker of the House in Saltsman’s home state of Tennessee says that Saltsman should be renounced, and perhaps stoned in the public square, according to this AP report.
Update: Blogger Jason Tolbert has more on what is apparently a long-running “There Will Be Blood” vengeance dynamic between Saltsman and Jimmy Naifeh, the Tennessee House Speaker.
And here’s a counter-intuitive Politico article suggesting that the whole controversy may end up HELPING Saltsman in his campaign to be RNC chair.
Chip Saltsman
Former Mike Huckabee campaign manager Chip Saltsman, now in a bid to to head the Republican National Committee, is in hot water the last few days for circulating a parody CD that included a track titled “Barack, the Magic Negro.”
The satirical song is a take-off on “Puff the Magic Dragon,” an execrable pop-folk “classic” by Peter, Paul and Mary, one of those horrific old baby boomer favorite acts that you’ll probably find on John Brummett’s new iPod. The new satirical version was featured on Rush Limbaugh’s radio show in 2007.
Anyway, with all the to-do over the song the last few days, I thought I’d make it easy on you and supply it here for your listening pleasure. The audio clip includes some of Limbaugh’s commentary leading up to the track, so it goes about 4 minutes. It’s here unless and until they make me take it down:
Click here to play “Barack, the Magic Negro”
Verdict: Eh. I don’t find it “racist” or “unacceptable” as some more excitable types do, but then I’m not easily offended. My objection is that it’s a pretty weak brew— it’s just not very funny as satire. Trey Parker of “South Park” fame can throw off a funnier musical bit than this before breakfast on an off day. I mean, if you’re going to sink your political future, at least do it for something that’s balls-out funny. Or somehow involves hookers.
Meanwhile, blogger Jason Tolbert takes note of a recent Saltsman visit to Arkansas to woo GOP regulars. With the media dust-up over this controversial parody track, will it all have been for naught?
Dick Armey
An Arkansas Project reader sends along an e-mail being circulated by FreedomWorks, a conservative advocacy organization headed up by former U.S. Rep. Dick Armey, calling on recipients to oppose efforts to hike the cigarette tax in Arkansas.
Democratic Rep. Gene Shelby suggested in September that the state cigarette tax should be increased by 50 cents per pack to fund a statewide trauma system.
Full text of the Armey statement follows at the jump.
Update: The Arkansas News Bureau’s man on the scene Rob Moritz goes beyond the Arkansas Project’s crackerjack reporting (i.e., pasting the text of a forwarded e-mail) and actually makes phone calls to talk to human beings about this issue. World of wonders!
