Tag: arkansas

Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R, AR) terminating contracts with Arkansas Planned Parenthood.

Elections matter.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson has directed the Department of Human Services to terminate Medicaid contracts with Planned Parenthood. “Termination will be effective thirty days from the date of the letter attached,” Hutchinson said in statement. The feds have recently told two other states that this maneuver violates federal law [Actually, they said ‘may.’ See below – ML].

You think that a Democratic governor Mike Ross (the guy Asa Hutchinson beat last year) would have done this, if the vote had gone the other way last year? – No, me neither. Ross certainly wouldn’t have provoked a possible showdown with the feds. And note that the correct term is ‘possible:’ contra that link above, the reality of the situation is that the federal government is carefully saying that the states may be violating federal law.

“CMS has notified states who have taken action to terminate their Medicaid provider agreements with Planned Parenthood that they may be in conflict with federal law,” Department of Health and Human Services spokesman Ben Wakana said in a statement.

Continue reading Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R, AR) terminating contracts with Arkansas Planned Parenthood.

Arkansas Senate: …DOOM.

The Arkansas Senate election is now over*.

Arkansas Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor argued that the federal government’s desegregation of Arkansas’s largest public school in 1957 was an “unwilling invasion” that took “a local problem out of the local authorities’ hands” and led to deep suspicions of democracy in the state, according to a copy of his college thesis obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

Written in 1985, the 30-page paper—which also suggested that the state’s Democratic Party was hindering economic progress, and attributed policies such as welfare and the Equal Rights Amendment to “wild-eyed liberals”—could add to Pryor’s difficulties as he fights to protect his seat from Republican challenger Rep. Tom Cotton.

Continue reading Arkansas Senate: …DOOM.

Mark Pryor (D): Man, we should replace Harry Reid (D) with Chuck Schumer (D)!

Free tip for politicians: stop saying in private what would embarrass you if it was said in public. Because eventually it will be said in public. From an ‘exclusive’ fundraising dinner last month:

During the discussion, an attendee began criticizing [Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid [D], telling [Senator Mark] Pryor [D] that the Democratic leader held some responsibility for the low approval rating of Congress.

“Let me just interrupt,” Pryor said, according to an audio recording that was corroborated by an attendee. “I think possibly the best thing that could happen … to this institution, this election cycle would be if [Senate Minority Leader] Mitch McConnell gets beat and Harry Reid gets replaced.”

The rest of Pryor’s comment is drowned out by clapping. A spokesperson for the Pryor campaign did not respond to requests to confirm this statement or questions about his opinion on Reid’s leadership role.

Yeah, I wouldn’t have responded, either. Pryor went on to endorse Schumer as a replacement – well, he also mentioned Mark Begich, but I think that you have to be a Senator to be a Senate Majority Leader – offer some advice on which Republican he’d like to lobby to next year once Pryor is abruptly out of office, and bad-mouth a bunch of people that he’s taken money from.  All in all, a stellar performance.  Stellar!

…And that’s why you want to vote for Tom Cotton next month.  Assuming that you live in Arkansas, of course.

Via Hot Air Headlines.

Moe Lane

Mark Pryor’s (D-INC, Arkansas-SEN) attempt to squeeze votes from the turnout turnip.

Like many another pundit, I read with some bemusement Molly Ball’s somewhat… accepting article about how embattled Democrat Mark Pryor plans to win the Arkansas election via turnout.  After I finished chuckling over this bit…

No sign announces the purpose of this little storefront, squeezed between a Bestway Rent to Own and a Rent-a-Center in a dilapidated shopping center. But the words hand-lettered in black and red marker on three pieces of paper taped to the window—”Register to Vote Here”—and a cluster of placards for candidates give it away: It is a Democratic Party field office.

Democrats aren’t advertising this office and 39 others like it that are scattered around Arkansas—in fact, their locations are a closely guarded secret.

…because, after all, the field office isn’t exactly a ‘closely guarded secret’ if it’s being featured in a Atlantic article (or, indeed, has a big Pryor sign in the window) – anyway, after I finished snickering I asked myself; just how likely is the Democratic scenario, anyway?

Turns out… not very likely, actually. Math is kind of getting in the way of the Democrats here. Continue reading Mark Pryor’s (D-INC, Arkansas-SEN) attempt to squeeze votes from the turnout turnip.

The Daily Beast interviews rape victim from 1975 court case involving Hillary Clinton as defense attorney.

I know that the title is clunky.  The problem is that every alternate headline that I came up with made it sound like Hillary Clinton raped a twelve year old girl.  Which is not true.

Well, possibly for a given value of ‘not true.’

Hillary Clinton is known as a champion of women and girls, but one woman who says she was raped as a 12-year-old in Arkansas doesn’t think Hillary deserves that honor. This woman says Hillary smeared her and used dishonest tactics to successfully get her attacker off with a light sentence — even though, she claims, Clinton knew he was guilty.

The victim in the 1975 sexual abuse case that became Clinton’s first criminal defense case as a 27-year-old lawyer has only spoken to the media once since her attack, a contested, short interaction with a reporter in 2008, during Clinton’s last presidential campaign run. Now 52, she wants to speak out after hearing Clinton talk about her case on newly discovered audio recordings from the 1980s, unearthed by the Washington Free Beacon[*] and made public this week.

Quick background, for people who don’t know: twelve year old was raped in Arkansas. At the 1975 trial, Hillary Clinton (defense attorney) made various claims about the victim, played a bunch of procedural games with the physical evidence, and managed to get her client a plea on a lesser charge that ended up with him in jail for a year, with two months time served.  The victim? …Had and has a hard life. Continue reading The Daily Beast interviews rape victim from 1975 court case involving Hillary Clinton as defense attorney.

Sen. Mark Pryor (D, Arkansas) takes a long step towards DOOM.

We do not minimize the service of combat veterans in this country.

 

Continue reading Sen. Mark Pryor (D, Arkansas) takes a long step towards DOOM.

RS Interview: Rep. Tom Cotton (R CAND, Arkansas Senate).

Arkansas, of course, is prime pickup territory for the GOP these days: incumbent Democrat Mark Pryor is considered to be in serious trouble by… well, pretty much everybody and it’s just not a good cycle for Democrats in general. We talked to increasingly-likely Republican candidate Rep. Tom Cotton earlier today about the race, and what he plans to do to win it:

Rep. Cotton’s site is here.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: Technical note: several of my questions had to be re-recorded because of a rather spectacular post-interview technical glitch that I am still trying to figure out. Fortunately, none of Tom Cotton’s answers got garbled, which is pretty much the important thing anyway. Nobody’s here to listen to me.