Contributing editor @oxfordamerican & @arktimes, words all over Subscribe to my Substack! davidbramsey.substack.com Lexington, KY davidbramsey@gmail.com
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I wrote about Willie Nelson and his song "Your Memory Won't Die In My Grace" + some other stuff. I'm sick of putting the link in a reply so I'm just gonna leave it here and maybe y'all can retweet this to spite Elon's moronic rules. davidbramsey.substack.com/p/…
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Kinda bleak to watch clips of politicians just in the 80s & 90s be so so much more fluent than our current crop. Even someone widely thought dumb like Quayle is way more capable of speaking clearly and knowledgeably. Was it the internet? Social media? We’re all a little dumber?
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A lot of people owe an apology to Rashida Tlaib. No one will.
Wild: Michigan AG Dana Nessel dropped all charges against 8 pro-Palestinian protesters not on the merits, but because the court was about to find her too racially biased against Arabs and Muslims to fairly prosecute the case based on her extensive history of racist attacks against Rashida Tlaib, a previous recusal in a case involving Arab/Muslim city council members, and her extensive ties to radical Zionist extremist groups caught attempting to influence the court. The AG's choice to personally prosecute a case involving such low-level charges was already being viewed as highly unusual.
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SCANDAL IN ARKANSAS: State officials conspire to break law, make up rules on fly, violate 100k Arkansans' right to petition, & engage in blatant viewpoint discrimination--desperate plot to keep abortion issue off ballot this November by any means necessary arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2…
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pretty amazing that @jeremyscahill, @ryangrim, @MazMHussain and others at lil reader-funded @DropSiteNews are consistently producing more valuable work than anyone in mainstream american media
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SCANDAL IN ARKANSAS
The latest: Attorney General who made up capricious, post-hoc rules on the fly in conspiracy to keep abortion off the ballot by any means necessary tries to defend malfeasance. But he only makes things worse.
arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2…
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Biggest misconception re: Medicaid "work requirements"--actual *requirement* is keeping up w/busybody paperwork, which in most states will be administered in confusing & burdensome grind that would make the DMV blush. You can work/be exempt & still get booted by the paper pushers
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isn't this sort of your vibe but it's all directed at leftists you find personally aggravating?
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This was done w/o organizational support from national groups on a shoestring budget. Just Arkansas women with clipboards, hustling.
Massive news from Arkansas: An amendment to reverse the state's abortion ban & protect abortion rights up to 18 weeks has enough signatures in hand to qualify for the ballot in November.
Abortion rights have done well w/direct democracy but Arkansas toughest test yet post-Roe.
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Massive news from Arkansas: An amendment to reverse the state's abortion ban & protect abortion rights up to 18 weeks has enough signatures in hand to qualify for the ballot in November.
Abortion rights have done well w/direct democracy but Arkansas toughest test yet post-Roe.
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Secretary of State's letter was deeply misleading. Abortion petitioners did in fact submit the list of paid canvassers. SoS's reasons for tossing pretty damn flimsy. But even if that holds they are CLEARLY violating the law by stopping the count. More soon.
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Y'all I'm fixing to publish a new article on the abortion petition kerfuffle and honestly I'm starting to feel like this is one of the biggest scandals I've ever covered. More soon.
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SCANDAL IN ARKANSAS (continued): 1) State officials preemptively DQ'd petition to put abortion on ballot for alleged paperwork error 2) they realized didn't follow law, made up new flimsy excuses 3) AR Supreme Court bails them out, stretches law to ok DQs. arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2…
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SCANDAL IN ARKANSAS (update). More info on AG conspiracy to keep abortion off ballot: Other 2 petition groups who got more favorable treatment than abortion group intervene in case to agree that key AG claim is b.s & he’s not applying (made-up) rule fairly arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2…
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helpful to know that "never" is the answer to whether there is a line that would cross over into "genocide" for @joshtpm
Rashida, I wish we could have spoken up in a more unified manner when we had a chance to prevent this presidency. And I can never accept your use of the term “genocide”. But I 100% agree that the only realistic, equitable and just solution is two states. That must continue to be our national policy and be serious about pursuing it (which hasn’t really been the case for more than decade) and President Trumps comments today are degenerate, despicable and utterly unacceptable.
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this marijuana ruling, I'm sorry, everything is pure Calvinball and chaos, there is no law in Arkansas really, the Supreme Court is just a joke making up whatever
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Sarah Huckabee Sanders' weird claim that a "special feature" justifying a $19,000 podium is that it's a bit shorter than your average podium is low-key the goofiest fib she's ever told.
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"You have a right to live there although you're banned."
bbc sputtering lol
the genocidal Israeli death and rape-cult is on a murderous rampage across the entire region. It is genociding Palestine, invading and bombing Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iran. It is like a crazed rabid animal, and it can only be stopped by brutal, relentless, unstoppable force
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Nannette Ruelle works 25-35 hrs/wk at $9/hr. She's locked out of Medicaid coverage in Arkansas for rest of year because of state's confusing new work-reporting bureaucracy. She's now running out of medications she needs to continue working. via @unbenji arktimes.com/arkansas/when-a…
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Christian private school promoted by Arkansas Department of Education does not allow LGBT students arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2…
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One interesting coincidence is that Rhonda Wood--who re-wrote the law in a partisan 4-3 majority opinion to kick abortion off the ballot--is running for Chief Justice of Supreme Court this Nov against Karen Baker, who wrote a blistering dissent tearing Wood's trickery to shreds.
You don’t have to “get over” the fact that elected government officials have blocked our right to vote on the issue of abortion in the state of Arkansas.
Vote them out.
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Basically everything that has happened regarding ballot initiatives this summer just reveals that the Arkansas Supreme Court is utterly lawless. Partisan hacks just doing partisan stuff. Law's got nothing to do with it.
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Update: State officials' malfeasance blocking abortion petition is so blatant a violation of due process & right to petition that 2 other petition groups (including 1 on other side of abortion issue) have intervened to call out the absurdity & unfairness. arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2…
SCANDAL IN ARKANSAS: State officials conspire to break law, make up rules on fly, violate 100k Arkansans' right to petition, & engage in blatant viewpoint discrimination--desperate plot to keep abortion issue off ballot this November by any means necessary arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2…
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Ark. Ed Dept finally releases annual voucher report, a month late. But it's just updates to last year, w/almost no new info about this year. Almost nothing on testing. Some numbers don't add up. Slapdash & barebones. In lieu of transparency it's ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2…
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New data on Arkansas vouchers: More than 80% of new enrollees did not attend public school last year. arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2…
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I get this. Something to it but it’s not naturalistic v. acting—if anything performative qualities of today’s politicians have gotten more hamfisted. It’s fluency, clear/knowledgeable communication. Even someone famously fuzzy like Reagan. You can feel it just reading transcripts
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Under the law, the Arkansas education department must issue its annual report on vouchers by Sept. 30. The report is nowhere to be found. arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2…
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Tom Cotton has bloviated about grand senatorial notion of virtuous leadership since he was a teenager. He thinks that was his destiny. But his relentless, bloodthirsty demagoguery--translating normal human fears into murderous bad policy--makes him utterly unfit for leadership.
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Here is my big story about the roller coaster tale of the Arkansas abortion ballot initiative. What happened, what's next, the legal arguments, the weird shenanigans, and more. arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2…
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this is not a dunk, no shade here: Zack, do you believe Israel is currently engaged in genocide against people of Gaza? If so, I think it would be productive to hear why you changed your mind; if not, I think it would be productive to hear why you think that's word term even now.
"soft genocide denial" to accurately describe the state of public opinion in Israel, we're done here
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This may well have been tweet that started the coverup. I believe state officials initially truly thought they'd found gotcha to automatically DQ abortion petition. Then they rushed & made mistake. But once SHS said this--no going back. Can't wound her ego so can't admit error.
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Tom Cotton has the all charisma of an unassembled cardboard box. arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2…
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PLOT THICKENS—2 other petition groups intervene to agree w/abortion petitioners that key argument from AG is made-up, out of the blue, last-minute BS: violating due process & right to petition + unfairly treating groups differently for no legit reason. arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2…
SCANDAL IN ARKANSAS: State officials conspire to break law, make up rules on fly, violate 100k Arkansans' right to petition, & engage in blatant viewpoint discrimination--desperate plot to keep abortion issue off ballot this November by any means necessary arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2…
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Depends on what the policy goal is. If the goal is kicking poor people off of Medicaid (including some who are working or are supposed to be exempt), it was highly effective in Arkansas.
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My wife's deeper theory: Women like Kristi Noem & Katie Britt are trying ever more exotic stunts searching for a template for a powerful woman's place in Trumpian universe--but they're flailing and failing bc actually there is no place for powerful women in Trumpian universe.
My wife has a very funny theory that the story is not even true (Grace grew up on a farm & her daddy and brother had a pack of hunting dogs, fwiw). This is obviously the funniest possibility, and she persuaded me that it's at least plausible.
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This is what marriage equality looks like. Photos from Eureka Springs, Arkansas by Kat Wilson: arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/ar…
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In retrospect, overall, Asa Hutchinson was in the very top tier of governors in terms of how he handled COVID. Possibly just the best.
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1. Reminder: Tom Cotton was asked last week in town hall about protecting HC for 300k Arkansans currently covered by Medicaid expansion.
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grim irony that Biden, whose entire self-conception was built around US liberal internationalism, delivered the death blow to the "rules based order" by such deadass obvious malice and farce
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that sense of breaking--of trying to bear witness to something so horrible it undoes your very sense of self--turns out to be way to pop Torres's psychopathic message discipline. interview was funny and stirring, but also grotesque. because it can only be coherent as grotesquerie
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Like if you get in a tizzy about a phrase in an unsafe water advisory and then you ban it because the words upset you, YOU ARE the P.C. police. You have become what you thought was dumb.
Sanders signs executive order banning the term ‘pregnant people’ in state documents.
Two days ago she was fussing about Chinese seed companies.
It's almost like the gov is attacking trans and Chinese people to deflect from #podiumgate . arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2… via @arktimes
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The AP's Andrew DeMillo is the most straight, down-the-middle reporter in the game, so if you're sneering at him as your enemy, maybe the problem is you.
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The same gang pushing this previously opposed these same people, working or not, from getting Medicaid at all! And tried unsuccessfully to boot them off Medicaid, working or not, when they last controlled House. This is just their new attempt: death by a thousand paper cuts.
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the funny part of this person's fake populist act is she is a dead ringer for the Eurotrash students at Ivy League universities in the 90s. the entire aesthetic, ethos, language. sad that her attempt at transgression was to copy rich halfwit snobs from 30 years ago.
Why not? I have a baseline appreciation for founding American (Anglo Saxon) norms and values whereas the Ilhans and Zohrans of the world not only don’t understand what they enjoy but often have an active hostility toward it and seek to destroy it…
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Important clarification: I'm NOT saying SoS intentionally tricked abortion petitioners + I believe state officials INITIALLY thought missing paperwork fatal. But they realized mistake & AG won't admit--started making up new BS excuses in bad faith. THAT'S the conspiracy & scandal
SCANDAL IN ARKANSAS: State officials conspire to break law, make up rules on fly, violate 100k Arkansans' right to petition, & engage in blatant viewpoint discrimination--desperate plot to keep abortion issue off ballot this November by any means necessary arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2…
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Lot depends on whether staffers start complaining but more it looks like AG Griffin was knowingly violating law to keep abortion off ballot by any means necessary--in a hamfisted way guaranteeing backlash--not joking when I say public officials should be calling for him to resign
Y'all I'm fixing to publish a new article on the abortion petition kerfuffle and honestly I'm starting to feel like this is one of the biggest scandals I've ever covered. More soon.
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my take is a lot of liberals have very serious anxiety problems & a lot of conservatives have very serious anger problems, and when it gets reflected in their politics, filtered through high social media usage, the results are very strange, very dark, w/highly baroque particulars
Something under appreciated in discussions of Vance and his ilk is the degree to which, yes, his ideological transformation is opportunistic, but also I think he and huge swaths of the modern right really have self-radicalized largely online and are constantly imbibing all kinds of genuinely monstrous, insane and bizarre ideas and have come to believe them.
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When Tim Griffin says his motto is "FTL" he doesn't mean "follow the law"--he means "f the left." If you're a lawless partisan operator you cannot serve ALL the Arkansans you were elected to serve. We can no longer have faith in basic fairness of our state gov.
He should resign.
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it seems like "globalize the intifada"--as with "from the river to the sea"--does not have this plain meaning attribute you describe. so...here we are.
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"If any demonstrator ever lays down in front of my car, it'll be the last car he'll ever lay down in front of."
--George Wallace
“It would probably be pretty painful to have their skin ripped off. But I think that’s probably how we would handle it in Arkansas.”
--Tom Cotton
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your impression is that left-wing people think, like, Cheney shouldn't vote for Democrats? I think Cheney should vote for Democrats + think Dems shouldn't promote Cheney as a key spokesperson. Sensible, no?
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No matter what happens next the Court has refuted the stated position of SoS, backed by AG Tim Griffin, that the state was duty-bound to preemptively stop the count. The Secretary of State did not follow the law in doing so, forcing the Court to order him to now comply.
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meantime, not long ago, Jake Tapper actively participated in an obviously phony slander campaign against Rashida Tlaib for supposed anti-Semitism
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HOW LOW CAN HE GO? The humiliation of Attorney General Tim Griffin--and the flailing conspiracy to keep the abortion petition off the ballot in November. arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2…
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The imposition of hassle by ideologues is an underrated problem in politics and policy.
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This was true dating back to negotiations with Arafat and the media's failure to make this clear helps explain some of the confusion and disappointment that followed.
There’s a lot of linguistic sleights of hand in media discourse but none more sinister—and successful—than “two state solution.” The gap between what the avg listener imagines this means vs what pundits and lawmakers actually mean is lightyears apart. Not remotely the same thing.
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one time you frantically speed-walked away from me at July 4 picnic in Corning, AR because you had no answers for what would happen if GOP plans to throw Arkansans off Medicaid prevailed. You still don't. You're just lying.
You voted to kick Arkansans off their health insurance.
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Hi if anyone from the Arkansas Secretary of State’s office would like to speak on deep background about the ballot petition counting/review process, I would protect your anonymity—feel free to reach out!
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This scandalous and incompetent shitshow is all to deny the constitutional rights of more than 100,000 Arkansans.
I have no idea how AR Sup Court will react. Obviously majority's anti-abortion. They could find other grounds to stop petition. But stink of scandal around AG's actions--& hypocritical absurdity of argument AG most emphasizes in last brief--may nudge 'em to force count to proceed
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Desperate Tim Griffin takes his made-up, absurd arguments to YouTube. Embarrassing behavior. I’ll write about this over weekend but hard to overstate how pathetic this is, just making his scandal worse. I guess if he can’t fool judges, hoping he can fool public. Utterly corrupt.
From time to time I like to speak directly to you on issues of great importance — especially when they impact millions of Arkansans. Today I’m speaking on the ballot measures that have been in the news lately. Some of the key facts have at times been missing from the conversation. I invite you to watch my video. My hope is that it provides clarity and understanding around this very important topic. tinyurl.com/bdhws3bz #arnews #arleg
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2. Cotton responded that part of reason he opposed AHCA is that it failed to do so. Hard to see how AHCA 2.0 addresses that.
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AR Sec of State now has different rules for different petitions. Latest filings, flip-flopping policies, bizarre timeline suggest this is more than tussle over statutory language: State officials actively conspiring to twist law to block abortion petition. arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2…
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Increasingly appears AG determined to block abortion petition by any means necessary--including violating law. They thought they had a gotcha; when it proved flimsy, new excuses flew, finally simply made up rules out of thin air & penalized 1 group while giving pass to others.
AR Sec of State now has different rules for different petitions. Latest filings, flip-flopping policies, bizarre timeline suggest this is more than tussle over statutory language: State officials actively conspiring to twist law to block abortion petition. arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2…
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Here is our preliminary story about what's going on with the abortion ballot initiative. We have much, much more, but wanted to share the basics. More coming soon, stay tuned... arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2…
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The current situation w/arkansas abortion rights petition is confusing. Lots of people (and some media reports) have lost track of state of play & key legal issues remaining. So let’s take a breath & go over basics as simply as we can! arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2…
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AG Griffin’s made up arg (canvassing co can’t sign as “sponsor”) is so obviously wrong marijuana AND casino are intervening in abortion case to say so!
Cheech, Chong, & Chips call it “11th-hour argument” w/o merit. Almost like AG realized abortion DQ was unlawful, now scrambling
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CALVINBALL: Arkansas Supreme Court twists the law to toss abortion petition off the ballot. More soon.
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How much more bullshit will AG Griffin feed SC before justices get sick? He just filed claim that he's not treating groups differently but he points to wrong statute. The disparate treatment is on 601, not 111. He can't be this incompetent. He's lying.
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SCANDAL IN ARKANSAS: Partisan 4-3 majority on Sup. Court re-writes law, giving cover to state officials twisting statutes to keep abortion off ballot. All 3 branches of gov conspiring to violate rights of 100k+ signatories & block voters from having a say. arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2…
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FYI 25 years ago in 1999, Tim Walz coached the Mankato West HS football team to its first ever Minnesota state championship & also volunteered to be the faculty advisor of the school’s first ever gay-straight alliance.
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Tim Griffin's terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad video. In widely panned foray try at being YouTube influencer, Powerpoint Timmy tries to bamboozle public on his abortion petition malfeasance. Phony nonsense arguments, awkward, unseemly. A pathetic fail.arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2…
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One of my favorite Asa Hutchinson accomplishments is he inherited "Private Option" Medicaid expansion w/pressure to kill it after GOP wave in '14. But he just renamed it "Arkansas Works." It was basically the same policy at the time, just rebranded. And that worked fine! Amazing!
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Little Rock, Arkansas cc: @zeynep
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The much anticipated realignment turns out to be... Republicans voting to cut Medicaid and cut taxes for rich people. Who could have seen it coming?
JD Vance is the phoniest man in politics, non-Ted Cruz division.
Someone did "pretend" to care about Americans on Medicaid, but it wasn't @mattyglesias, who's absolutely right about this. It was you, JD. In 2017, you repeatedly said Medicaid cuts like these betray working class voters. Turns out it was all a scam.
newrepublic.com/article/1954…
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Kamala’s first act as POTUS should be a generous offer to Anthony Blinken to let him focus on his promising career as a blues musician.
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Motion to intervene granted. Getting wild!
AG Griffin’s made up arg (canvassing co can’t sign as “sponsor”) is so obviously wrong marijuana AND casino are intervening in abortion case to say so!
Cheech, Chong, & Chips call it “11th-hour argument” w/o merit. Almost like AG realized abortion DQ was unlawful, now scrambling
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I don’t mean simplicity so much as politicians now really struggle with contemporaneous speaking for a few minutes on a topic of general interest. One can do that simply, in plain language. Our gang can’t do it at all.
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Today is @Lindsey_millar's last day as editor of the @ArkTimes. He was not as...vocal as Max, so many on the outside may not know his name, but for those of that worked there, it's the end of an era.
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CONFIRMED: Obamacare premiums in Arkansas projected to DECLINE by 2% in 2015. arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/ar…
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Your tax dollars at work: Voucher-mad Arkansas Department of Education uses public platform to promote private Christian school arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2…
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They still haven't responded to us but a staffer told Sen. Leding it will be available Monday. Can only speculate, but at least looks like now rushing to get the messaging/presentation together in response to our story yesterday.
Kwami makes a great point here. Is @ArkansasEd's failure to deliver this required #vouchers report a way to bury bad news before the election? Because we know that's exactly the kind of thing the Sanders administration would do.
#Arkansas #arpx
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I'm covering the details bc key to whether abortion petition stays alive. But my main opinion is it's outrageous that we've made direct democracy into document compliance challenge. Lawyer shit. No dispute that petitioners did fraud-prevention actions! Just busybody paperwork...
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lol, this bill is so atrocious that even Roby Brock finally broke character as unflappable objective journalist and almost started laughing at the b.s. at the end of this interview
#arpx #arleg From today's @CapitolViewAR > Rep. @DavidARay on tax cuts, FOIA changes planned during special session - piped.video/B939c_BCohk
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Never mind, no scandal any more, Sarah Huckabee Sanders has reimagined herself as a hip-hop legend.
AUDIT REPORT REFUTED WITH THIS SICK ANIMATION AND SICKER BEATS.
You want her podium? COME AND TAKE IT*.
*unless it's the feds
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Snoop Dogg's transition into full-on Dolly status would have been hard to see coming once upon a time.
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This is developing story & we're continuing to analyze the opinion & dissents. Refresh for updates, there will be plenty in next few hours. Truly atrocious legal reasoning--like, embarrassing themselves--in the majority opinion, but of course they don't care!
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
SCANDAL IN ARKANSAS (continued): 1) State officials preemptively DQ'd petition to put abortion on ballot for alleged paperwork error 2) they realized didn't follow law, made up new flimsy excuses 3) AR Supreme Court bails them out, stretches law to ok DQs. arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2…
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Under the law, the abortion petitioners could have been collecting additional signatures this whole time to make up shortfall if they wind up being allowed to "cure." I don't understand why they haven't kept up the push. They could win in court but run out of time.
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