The Thursday night line commences. Final words:
* BYE BYE ALEC: Add Walgreens and General Motors to the list of corporations that are ending support of the Koch-influenced American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative lobby group that writes anti-tax and anti-regulatory legislation primarily for Republican state legislators. It has been leading the effort to disqualify tens of thousands of voters through voter ID laws. Coincidentally, I got a link to a relevant YouTube on ALEC today.
* EAT MORE BURGER: The Chick-fil-A debate grows sillier. A contingent of Arkansas House Republicans couldn’t wait until Aug. 1, Mike Huckabee’s self-declared Stand Up for Bigotry Day. They ate at lunch at a local Chick-fil-A today. In Rep. Ann Clemmer’s words, it was a blow against the “thought police.” Nobody has tried to police any thoughts here. Thoughts may be just as freely exercised as prayer in school. Some have criticized and others have praised the political beliefs of the Chick-fil-A owners, which is still fair game in America. Some politicians have proposed barring the company from doing business in their cities — probably a stretch, though in cities with anti-discrimination ordinances and civil union laws, it is fair to ask whether the Chick-fil-A owners, who’ve given millions to organizations that fight employment rights and marriage rights for gay people, practice discrimination. That discrimination is legal in some places (Arkansas), not legal in others. Support Chick-fil-A, don’t support Chick-fil-A. But it still strikes me as unseemly to boast that you are going to show all those nasty homosexuals out there by eating there as often as possible and Twittering and Facebooking and speechifying about it to show pride in your distaste for other humans. I don’t eat at Chick-fil-A, first, because it’s bland, limp chicken. Give me Popeye’s.
- Jeff Tarpley
- LOOKING FOR HOMES: Dachsunds in Texarkana.
* TO THE RESCUE: Just saw this on 40/29.
A dachsund rescuer in Texarkana is looking for homes for some of the 38 dachsunds found at a home of an elderly couple who said they had too many dogs.
Here’s a contact for rescuer Jeff Tarpley.
* GRADING ON THE CURVE: Republican congressional candidate Tom Cotton proudly announced today that he’d been endorsed by Arthur Laffer, the economist whose “Laffer curve” theory is seen as the basis for supply-side economics. If Laffer’s endorsement does for Cotton what his theory does for the economy, it should be a good year for Democratic candidate Gene Jeffress.
* ROMNEY’S STICKY WICKET: Mitt Romney, whose aides have made much of their candidate’s supposed better connection with the Anglo-Saxon Brits (a blatant racial dig), has stepped in it by questioning their ability to run the Olympics. So much for his keener understanding of that special relationship.
* ANOTHER TRIPLE-DIGIT DAY: With the day not done, the high had reached 103 in Little Rock, a record and the 17th triple-digit day. 30 more like that and we set a record.
* GOOD RIDDANCE MIKE ROSS: He continues to heap shame on himself. Today it was by being among a handful of DINOs voting for a meaningless piece of legislation by Rep. Tim Griffin that has been derided by some leading Republicans as “nonsense” and worse. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce loved this anti-regulation nonsense (in other words it is anti- clean air, water, public health, consumer etc.)
* EIGHT INDICTED IN HEROIN CASE: The U.S. attorney has announced the indictment of eight people from Cabot, Ward and Little Rock in a heroin distribution conspiracy. The government news release said the heroin trafficking resulted in the deaths of two people from overdoses, but doesn’t provide additional details or identities. The office said this was just the beginning of an effort to attack heroin dealing in Cabot and Lonoke County.